Ex Shelton Seagull
New member
Here's mine. Going a bit Che Guevara at the end but i've still got some of the student in me!
Dear Mr Prescott,
I am writing to you concerning the Public Inquiry into a stadium at Falmer, Brighton that you are currently overseeing. Your office will have received today a copy of the local planning inspector’s report and I wish to object in the strongest possible terms to this report.
The inspector has recommended that the proposed community stadium at Falmer, East Sussex, be rejected. He claims that the site is too small and that a “provincial sports team”, namely Brighton & Hove Albion FC, is deemed not important enough to be granted this land for a new home.
In coming to this conclusion the inspector has totally ignored over 60,000 people who voted for the stadium to be sited at Falmer, totally ignored the surveys conducted by the council and club into potential sites for a new stadium which found Falmer to be the ONLY option in Brighton & Hove and seemingly dismissed out of hand the hundreds of hours of expert testimony given at the public inquiry by dozens of experts in this field.
His conclusions and suggested alternatives are laughable. He suggests Brighton station car park, Sheepcote Valley, Toads Hole Valley and our current rented, temporary, stadium at Withdean. All of these sites were considered and rejected in an exhaustive report conducted by Brighton & Hove council and Brighton & Hove Albion FC several years ago. Nothing has changed at those sites since that report was conducted.
Brighton station car park is around half the size of the Falmer site, yet the inspector rejects Falmer because he considers it to be too small to accommodate a stadium. He also appears to have failed to note that Sainsburys supermarkets have applied for planning permission to build a new outlet on this land along with a small-scale residential development.
Sheepcote Valley, which he describes as having “no great landscape value”, has NO public transport links and is built on an abandoned waste tip. The football pitches that are currently on the site have major problems with drainage as a result. How could a professional football club be expected to fulfil fixtures on such an appalling surface?
Toad’s Hole Valley was rejected as a potential site for a stadium by the local council back in 1995 and nothing has changed the site since that decision was taken. Any building on the site would have a devastating effect on the abundant wildlife in the area and is miles from the nearest train station.
Withdean stadium is far too small for our needs and is bounded by a nature reserve on one side and housing on the other three. There is NO future for this club at Withdean stadium.
The Falmer site has been chosen time and again by elected officials and experts in stadium construction as the best site for a community stadium. It is next to the A27, has a railway station next door, and is next to several large buildings belonging to Brighton University. Both Sussex and Brighton Universities would gain new buildings and income from this development, the local area of Moulsecoomb would have a centre for education and skills development and the city of Brighton and Hove would at last have a sporting facility to be proud of.
As well as dismissing the stadium plans he also rejects Brighton & Hove councils policy of making 40% of new housing units affordable. Mr Prescott, I was born in Shoreham and have lived around the Brighton area for most of my life. Since returning from University education and getting a job at a multi-national defence company I have been unable to afford to even rent a flat, let alone consider buying one. The rents and house prices in Brighton & Hove are some of the highest in the entire country and mean that young people such as myself have almost no chance of contributing to the community and making ourselves independent. The council’s policy is in line with your own department’s objectives on affordable housing. The inspector dismisses these policies in quite frankly insulting terms, insulting not only to the council planners and the ten’s of thousands of people like myself, but insulting to your own department.
I urge you to totally reject this half-baked, condescending piece of claptrap and consign it to the dustbin where it belongs. It angers me that my tax money could have been wasted on this amateurish piece of work, a piece of work which ignores basic facts, ignores the wishes of the majority of the population of this city and ignores the democratic process itself.
If one unelected, unaccountable official is allowed to overturn the wishes of over sixty thousand voters, three elected ministers of parliament and an elected council then it will be a sad day for those of us who believe that we live in a democracy.
Dear Mr Prescott,
I am writing to you concerning the Public Inquiry into a stadium at Falmer, Brighton that you are currently overseeing. Your office will have received today a copy of the local planning inspector’s report and I wish to object in the strongest possible terms to this report.
The inspector has recommended that the proposed community stadium at Falmer, East Sussex, be rejected. He claims that the site is too small and that a “provincial sports team”, namely Brighton & Hove Albion FC, is deemed not important enough to be granted this land for a new home.
In coming to this conclusion the inspector has totally ignored over 60,000 people who voted for the stadium to be sited at Falmer, totally ignored the surveys conducted by the council and club into potential sites for a new stadium which found Falmer to be the ONLY option in Brighton & Hove and seemingly dismissed out of hand the hundreds of hours of expert testimony given at the public inquiry by dozens of experts in this field.
His conclusions and suggested alternatives are laughable. He suggests Brighton station car park, Sheepcote Valley, Toads Hole Valley and our current rented, temporary, stadium at Withdean. All of these sites were considered and rejected in an exhaustive report conducted by Brighton & Hove council and Brighton & Hove Albion FC several years ago. Nothing has changed at those sites since that report was conducted.
Brighton station car park is around half the size of the Falmer site, yet the inspector rejects Falmer because he considers it to be too small to accommodate a stadium. He also appears to have failed to note that Sainsburys supermarkets have applied for planning permission to build a new outlet on this land along with a small-scale residential development.
Sheepcote Valley, which he describes as having “no great landscape value”, has NO public transport links and is built on an abandoned waste tip. The football pitches that are currently on the site have major problems with drainage as a result. How could a professional football club be expected to fulfil fixtures on such an appalling surface?
Toad’s Hole Valley was rejected as a potential site for a stadium by the local council back in 1995 and nothing has changed the site since that decision was taken. Any building on the site would have a devastating effect on the abundant wildlife in the area and is miles from the nearest train station.
Withdean stadium is far too small for our needs and is bounded by a nature reserve on one side and housing on the other three. There is NO future for this club at Withdean stadium.
The Falmer site has been chosen time and again by elected officials and experts in stadium construction as the best site for a community stadium. It is next to the A27, has a railway station next door, and is next to several large buildings belonging to Brighton University. Both Sussex and Brighton Universities would gain new buildings and income from this development, the local area of Moulsecoomb would have a centre for education and skills development and the city of Brighton and Hove would at last have a sporting facility to be proud of.
As well as dismissing the stadium plans he also rejects Brighton & Hove councils policy of making 40% of new housing units affordable. Mr Prescott, I was born in Shoreham and have lived around the Brighton area for most of my life. Since returning from University education and getting a job at a multi-national defence company I have been unable to afford to even rent a flat, let alone consider buying one. The rents and house prices in Brighton & Hove are some of the highest in the entire country and mean that young people such as myself have almost no chance of contributing to the community and making ourselves independent. The council’s policy is in line with your own department’s objectives on affordable housing. The inspector dismisses these policies in quite frankly insulting terms, insulting not only to the council planners and the ten’s of thousands of people like myself, but insulting to your own department.
I urge you to totally reject this half-baked, condescending piece of claptrap and consign it to the dustbin where it belongs. It angers me that my tax money could have been wasted on this amateurish piece of work, a piece of work which ignores basic facts, ignores the wishes of the majority of the population of this city and ignores the democratic process itself.
If one unelected, unaccountable official is allowed to overturn the wishes of over sixty thousand voters, three elected ministers of parliament and an elected council then it will be a sad day for those of us who believe that we live in a democracy.
