ROSM
Well-known member
This is my response (sent yesterday)
Sir,
I was highly intrigued by the comment from Stephen Gardiner. I'm not sure just how many errors can be made in such a short piece, but Stephen seems to try and test the limit.
In short, Brighton and Hove is bordered on the south by the sea and to the north, west and east, by the South Downs. Herein lies the unique situation that any planning application needs to be viewed.
To say the site is in the National Park (a comment attributed to David Neighbour) is at best disingenuous and at worst deceitful. The application for a stadium is actually four applications:
1) A stadium
2) Coach pick up and drop off points
3) & 4) a road widening for approx 150 metres
Application 1 is totally within the Brighton and Hove City Boundary, application 2 is within Lewes District and 3 & 4 are split between the two. There is no firm agreed boundary for the new national park and so to say any of the applications are within a national park is clearly incorrect. The draft boundary has the stadium and part of the road outside of the national park with the coach point and remaining road within. However, National Park boundaries should be fixed on physical boundaries (e.g. hedgerows, roads etc) rather than borough/district ones which may be right in the middle of fields. As a result, it is likely that the final adopted boundary will be the B2123 road which will leave all 4 applications outside of the National Park. All land not within the National Park will lose its AONB status.
It is also incorrect to refer to the 'twin villages of Falmer'. They are one village - separated by the A27 6 lane road. The building of this effectively damaged the AONB status once and for all (the AONB was devised 40 years ago and has avoided being redrawn due to the impending National Park). Finally, over 40% of the stadium site has already been developed and is therefore, brownfield land. I bet David Neighbour, Lead Councillor for Planning at Lewes DC and the prime movers in opposing the stadium never mentioned that? I bet he also never mentioned the costs (£250k and rising) of their opposition. Nor the fact that they have never asked their electorate to sanction this spend and have consistently gone over budget.
Perhaps we'll leave that to the electorate in May?
Sir,
I was highly intrigued by the comment from Stephen Gardiner. I'm not sure just how many errors can be made in such a short piece, but Stephen seems to try and test the limit.
In short, Brighton and Hove is bordered on the south by the sea and to the north, west and east, by the South Downs. Herein lies the unique situation that any planning application needs to be viewed.
To say the site is in the National Park (a comment attributed to David Neighbour) is at best disingenuous and at worst deceitful. The application for a stadium is actually four applications:
1) A stadium
2) Coach pick up and drop off points
3) & 4) a road widening for approx 150 metres
Application 1 is totally within the Brighton and Hove City Boundary, application 2 is within Lewes District and 3 & 4 are split between the two. There is no firm agreed boundary for the new national park and so to say any of the applications are within a national park is clearly incorrect. The draft boundary has the stadium and part of the road outside of the national park with the coach point and remaining road within. However, National Park boundaries should be fixed on physical boundaries (e.g. hedgerows, roads etc) rather than borough/district ones which may be right in the middle of fields. As a result, it is likely that the final adopted boundary will be the B2123 road which will leave all 4 applications outside of the National Park. All land not within the National Park will lose its AONB status.
It is also incorrect to refer to the 'twin villages of Falmer'. They are one village - separated by the A27 6 lane road. The building of this effectively damaged the AONB status once and for all (the AONB was devised 40 years ago and has avoided being redrawn due to the impending National Park). Finally, over 40% of the stadium site has already been developed and is therefore, brownfield land. I bet David Neighbour, Lead Councillor for Planning at Lewes DC and the prime movers in opposing the stadium never mentioned that? I bet he also never mentioned the costs (£250k and rising) of their opposition. Nor the fact that they have never asked their electorate to sanction this spend and have consistently gone over budget.
Perhaps we'll leave that to the electorate in May?
