34064 Fighter Command
New member
My own effort :
Mr John Prescott,
Deputy Prime Minister,
26 Whitehall,
London,
SW1A 2WH,
February 6th 2004
With reference to:
THE LOCAL PLAN INSPECTOR’S REPORT ON THE DEPOSIT DRAFT OF THE BRIGHTON AND HOVE CITY LOCAL PLAN
Dear Mr Prescott,
I am writing to urge you to employ your oversight powers on the above report, in order to redress the omissions and flaws in the sections pertaining to the proposed community stadium at Falmer. The inspector’s conclusions defy common sense. Indeed they appear totally dependent on his own subjective opinion, and are ignorant of THE FACTS.
The inspector’s report cuts across and ultimately trivialises the very serious and deliberate planning process that has been under way in the City for some while now on the community stadium proposal.
This planning process has been a fair and open one, allowing all to contribute in the true democratic spirit of local accountability, consultation and decision-making. Most importantly, it recognised the various available sites, and used a logical sequential analysis to determine that the best location for such a Stadium is at Falmer.
However, the inspector totally ignores this process, and cites less suitable sites as being more appropriate. There is NO SUPPORTING ARGUMENT within the report to uphold this conclusion. There has been a long and deliberate enquiry by one of your department’s inspectors into the merits of the scheme, where all interested parties could make their case and submit evidence in a fair and equitable manner. I do not see how such an inquiry can recommend unsuitable sites, such as Sheepcote Valley, or Toads Hole Valley, where transport and infrastructure requirements are at present, totally unsuitable for a development of this kind.
The thousands of hours of work that has gone into this process by a huge number of planning professionals and the many thousands of residents in Sussex now appears to be threatened by the very partial and ill-considered conclusions of Mr Hoile.
I would urge you to place as much weight on the conclusions of his report as the amount of work done in reaching them, which from the tone of the report, appear to be little more than Mr Hoile’s own personal opinion.
My own personal opinion, as someone born and bred in Mid-Sussex and Brighton & Hove, is that Mr Hoile has not taken the requisite level of care and diligence in the preparation of his report, and that it cannot be considered a useful document.
The slipshod conclusions can be seen clearly in the nonsensical proposals for alternative sites for the community stadium. Mr Hoile lists those at Brighton station, which would be too small and blight the city centre with congestion, and Sheepcote Valley, which is already well used for community leisure purposes but does not have the public transport infrastructure to cope with stadium use. His other proposals are as equally risible: Withdean would require huge redevelopment work that would have a serious impact on the local community and Brighton’s railway line; and Toad’s Hole Valley would have a disastrous impact on local wildlife as well as being totally unsuitable for public transport. The shortcomings of these alternatives have all been widely publicised in independent consultants’ reports that Mr Hoile has bizarrely chosen to disregard.
The inspector has also chosen to ignore the huge weight of evidence showing the crucial importance of the new community stadium and the prosperity of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club to the local economic, social and educational wealth of the County. The facility would be used by an enormous catchment area south of the M25, stretching to the Sussex borders.
The renewed vitality that the community stadium would give to the social and leisure scene in Sussex, the considerable economic boost to a locality in need of jobs, the boost in prosperity, and the additional opportunities it would give for education and skills training, all policies supported by your government, must be given due consideration.
As someone who has spent many years of his life living in close proximity to the South Downs, I am supportive of the national park proposals. However I cannot support any argument whereby the status of the South Downs is protected at the expense of providing local communities with the kind of world class facilities available in the rest of the country.
The Stadium site proposed covers a mere 25 acres. This is an almost minuscule percentage of the total amount of land being considered for the proposed national park. How anyone can say that this will have a significant impact on the South Downs is beyond belief. The proposed national park covers 983 square kilometres. The Falmer proposal takes up one ten thousandth of this ( 0.01 % )! In my book, that’s pretty much negligible!
I spent many years playing school’s sport on the fields at Sheepcote Valley. The only means of getting there was by bus. There is no nearby railway station, and no provision for large numbers of private car users, neither within the road network, nor for parking purposes. Next to our school field were a caravan site and a rubbish tip. Playing fields built upon this tip have been difficult to maintain, and in reality, any development of the site would not only mean the loss of these playing fields, but also costly and lengthy land decontamination prior to it’s use for building purposes.
Toads Hole Valley is currently the subject of a campaign to have it included within the proposed South Downs National Park. Any proposed development on that site will be detrimental, and I consider Toads Hole Valley to be of greater environmental significance, and more ‘ beautiful ‘ ( if that is what is required to define a AONB ) than Falmer.
Brighton Station car park is unsuitable. In acreage terms a stadium may appear viable, but the site, being a long, thin strip of land, is the wrong shape! It will also eliminate the Station Car Park. Where will commuters, using the station, park their cars? I’ll tell you where, on local side roads, creating traffic chaos!
The Falmer site has been chosen by Brighton and Hove residents because independent consultants have demonstrated that it offers the best public transport links for a sustainable scheme of moving large numbers of stadium users with the minimum environmental impact. The proposal has attracted all-party support from local councillors and MPs because the impact on land close to the A27 and the university developments is seen to be minimal when compared to the huge advantages it will bring to the social and economic life of the community. Indeed, the University of Brighton has been persuaded that the Stadium development brings with it, an opportunity to update and renew the infrastructure of their Falmer Campus. Such renewal would not take place if the Stadium were sited elsewhere.
The Taylor report commissioned by government many years ago placed a responsibility on local planning agencies to respond sensitively to the need for new community sporting Stadia to replace inadequate and outdated facilities.
The many tens of thousands of people in Sussex, who voted in the ballot box, and signed petitions in favour of a community stadium at Falmer, are looking to you, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, to deliver them a decision that will provide them with the kind of facility that your own home city of Hull is rightly proud of. Do not underestimate the political significance of this issue for the people of Brighton and Hove. And most of all, please do not let us down!
Mr John Prescott,
Deputy Prime Minister,
26 Whitehall,
London,
SW1A 2WH,
February 6th 2004
With reference to:
THE LOCAL PLAN INSPECTOR’S REPORT ON THE DEPOSIT DRAFT OF THE BRIGHTON AND HOVE CITY LOCAL PLAN
Dear Mr Prescott,
I am writing to urge you to employ your oversight powers on the above report, in order to redress the omissions and flaws in the sections pertaining to the proposed community stadium at Falmer. The inspector’s conclusions defy common sense. Indeed they appear totally dependent on his own subjective opinion, and are ignorant of THE FACTS.
The inspector’s report cuts across and ultimately trivialises the very serious and deliberate planning process that has been under way in the City for some while now on the community stadium proposal.
This planning process has been a fair and open one, allowing all to contribute in the true democratic spirit of local accountability, consultation and decision-making. Most importantly, it recognised the various available sites, and used a logical sequential analysis to determine that the best location for such a Stadium is at Falmer.
However, the inspector totally ignores this process, and cites less suitable sites as being more appropriate. There is NO SUPPORTING ARGUMENT within the report to uphold this conclusion. There has been a long and deliberate enquiry by one of your department’s inspectors into the merits of the scheme, where all interested parties could make their case and submit evidence in a fair and equitable manner. I do not see how such an inquiry can recommend unsuitable sites, such as Sheepcote Valley, or Toads Hole Valley, where transport and infrastructure requirements are at present, totally unsuitable for a development of this kind.
The thousands of hours of work that has gone into this process by a huge number of planning professionals and the many thousands of residents in Sussex now appears to be threatened by the very partial and ill-considered conclusions of Mr Hoile.
I would urge you to place as much weight on the conclusions of his report as the amount of work done in reaching them, which from the tone of the report, appear to be little more than Mr Hoile’s own personal opinion.
My own personal opinion, as someone born and bred in Mid-Sussex and Brighton & Hove, is that Mr Hoile has not taken the requisite level of care and diligence in the preparation of his report, and that it cannot be considered a useful document.
The slipshod conclusions can be seen clearly in the nonsensical proposals for alternative sites for the community stadium. Mr Hoile lists those at Brighton station, which would be too small and blight the city centre with congestion, and Sheepcote Valley, which is already well used for community leisure purposes but does not have the public transport infrastructure to cope with stadium use. His other proposals are as equally risible: Withdean would require huge redevelopment work that would have a serious impact on the local community and Brighton’s railway line; and Toad’s Hole Valley would have a disastrous impact on local wildlife as well as being totally unsuitable for public transport. The shortcomings of these alternatives have all been widely publicised in independent consultants’ reports that Mr Hoile has bizarrely chosen to disregard.
The inspector has also chosen to ignore the huge weight of evidence showing the crucial importance of the new community stadium and the prosperity of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club to the local economic, social and educational wealth of the County. The facility would be used by an enormous catchment area south of the M25, stretching to the Sussex borders.
The renewed vitality that the community stadium would give to the social and leisure scene in Sussex, the considerable economic boost to a locality in need of jobs, the boost in prosperity, and the additional opportunities it would give for education and skills training, all policies supported by your government, must be given due consideration.
As someone who has spent many years of his life living in close proximity to the South Downs, I am supportive of the national park proposals. However I cannot support any argument whereby the status of the South Downs is protected at the expense of providing local communities with the kind of world class facilities available in the rest of the country.
The Stadium site proposed covers a mere 25 acres. This is an almost minuscule percentage of the total amount of land being considered for the proposed national park. How anyone can say that this will have a significant impact on the South Downs is beyond belief. The proposed national park covers 983 square kilometres. The Falmer proposal takes up one ten thousandth of this ( 0.01 % )! In my book, that’s pretty much negligible!
I spent many years playing school’s sport on the fields at Sheepcote Valley. The only means of getting there was by bus. There is no nearby railway station, and no provision for large numbers of private car users, neither within the road network, nor for parking purposes. Next to our school field were a caravan site and a rubbish tip. Playing fields built upon this tip have been difficult to maintain, and in reality, any development of the site would not only mean the loss of these playing fields, but also costly and lengthy land decontamination prior to it’s use for building purposes.
Toads Hole Valley is currently the subject of a campaign to have it included within the proposed South Downs National Park. Any proposed development on that site will be detrimental, and I consider Toads Hole Valley to be of greater environmental significance, and more ‘ beautiful ‘ ( if that is what is required to define a AONB ) than Falmer.
Brighton Station car park is unsuitable. In acreage terms a stadium may appear viable, but the site, being a long, thin strip of land, is the wrong shape! It will also eliminate the Station Car Park. Where will commuters, using the station, park their cars? I’ll tell you where, on local side roads, creating traffic chaos!
The Falmer site has been chosen by Brighton and Hove residents because independent consultants have demonstrated that it offers the best public transport links for a sustainable scheme of moving large numbers of stadium users with the minimum environmental impact. The proposal has attracted all-party support from local councillors and MPs because the impact on land close to the A27 and the university developments is seen to be minimal when compared to the huge advantages it will bring to the social and economic life of the community. Indeed, the University of Brighton has been persuaded that the Stadium development brings with it, an opportunity to update and renew the infrastructure of their Falmer Campus. Such renewal would not take place if the Stadium were sited elsewhere.
The Taylor report commissioned by government many years ago placed a responsibility on local planning agencies to respond sensitively to the need for new community sporting Stadia to replace inadequate and outdated facilities.
The many tens of thousands of people in Sussex, who voted in the ballot box, and signed petitions in favour of a community stadium at Falmer, are looking to you, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, to deliver them a decision that will provide them with the kind of facility that your own home city of Hull is rightly proud of. Do not underestimate the political significance of this issue for the people of Brighton and Hove. And most of all, please do not let us down!
