not sure if this is fixtures but.....(re falmer)

[turienzo's lovechild]

doing an essay now, basically on public involvement with the planning process

it got me thinking, now obviously, the people of falmer were involved, very annoyingly so, but were the people of mouslecomb/that general area EVER involved/consulted in the planning process of the community stadium? it is often cited that one of the main reasons as to why the proposal was given permission was due to its location, near to a deprived area of Brighton & Hove, but were these people ever actually consulted by the club, and more importantly, the council, regarding the matter?

 

[turienzo's lovechild]

ie:- 'the stadium will create jobs for the local area'

do the people in the 'local area' actually want to work there?!

 

[Robot Chicken]

How many jobs will the stadium create? Temporary and permanent? How much of the estimated £50m cost will actually enter the local economy?

I'm sure these facts were printed somewhere.

 

[turienzo's lovechild]

i'm not talking about that though, the 'local economy' doesn't necessarily involve the areas directly surrounding the stadium

were the residents of the 'deprived' areas of brighton that the stadium is supposed to be helping ACTUALLY consulted in the matter?

i'm not getting at the club or the council, because i don't know the answer

it's just GENERALLY the point of my degree

 

[Gwylan]

I do know that in the referendum, the area with the highest vote for the stadium was Moulsecoomb (and you should learn to spell it correctly if you're writing an essay about it) so you could definitely say that there's support for the stadium.

Were the people of Falmer actively involved though? They - or a handful of them - protested against the stadium but I don't think that either the club or the council involved them in the decision-making process, although I'm sure someone from FFA could give a better indication of that than I.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

Falmer PC were a party to the public inquiry, weren't they? So that makes them part of the process.

 

[Beach Hut]

Wasn't there some controversy (again) from LDC stating the jobs at the stadium were sort of less demanding therefore would suit Moulsecoomb people ?

 

[Bobby's Gull]

I seem to think that LDC said that basically the residents of Moulsecoombe were too thick to be able to work in the building or the actual running of the stadium.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Not at all Beachy - quite the opposite. They said that the jobs created would be TOO HARD for the inbred miscreant denizens of 'scoomb to handle.

[They phrased it slightly differently, but that's would they said!]

 

[Gwylan]

Falmer PC were a party to the public inquiry, weren't they? So that makes them part of the process.

Yes, but they chose to be. The point I was making is that neither the club nor the council wanted to get FPC involved. The Moulsecoomb Tenants Association could have been if they'd wanted to be.

 

[folkestonesgull]

It would be worth contacting the club to see if they met with local residents groups etc before the planning application was even submitted.

If (as i think it was) the stadium site was aqn allocated development in the Local Plan it would have had to have gone through a full consultation procedure with a period of time for any objections etc to be heard, as well as contacting local councillors and groups etc before the inspector agreed that the plan was ok to be adopted. This would have to have been done and is why the adopted local plan is given so much weighting in planning decisions.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

The building jobs will be open to builders and it's hoped that a fair number of locals will benefit from that.

As for permanent jobs with the stadium/Albion then you obviosly apply and are employed on merit but living nearby is always a 'plus'

When it comes to matchday jobs (burgers, turnstyles, vendors, stewards etc) you would expect people living in easy reach would be interested. Of course, you can't make people work but i'd imagine a fair number of people in the north Brighton area would like to be involved.

 

[antifalmer]

doing an essay now, basically on public involvement with the planning process

it got me thinking, now obviously, the people of falmer were involved, very annoyingly so, but were the people of mouslecomb/that general area EVER involved/consulted in the planning process of the community stadium? it is often cited that one of the main reasons as to why the proposal was given permission was due to its location, near to a deprived area of Brighton & Hove, but were these people ever actually consulted by the club, and more importantly, the council, regarding the matter?

Hooray! Although it's now too late, someone's actually asking the right questions. Well done. The stadium was given permission ONLY because of the supposed socio-economic benefits.... and for no other reason. Prescott stated that the city doesn't deserve a stadium of right, that it would be no loss to the leagues if the club went bust and that there was no reason to think the club would go bust if it didn't get Falmer, all of which were central to the clubs arguments. Given that there are already many unskilled jobs available in Brighton, why will the East Brighton residents actually want those in the stadium when they don't take the ones available now in B&H? The Argus crows each Thursday that they have 500+ jobs in their situations vacant section, many unskilled. LDC hired a consultant to actually look at the DATA ( a novel concept in this argument I know), and they found civil servants at job centres happy to say the stadium would bring no jobs to East Brighton residents that aren't already available now....

This issue is central to the issue of re-generation vs. development. In order for the thing to be re-development, the unemployed residents should have been consulted first and a development planned that catered to their skill sets. Instead, you will get a development that attempts to retro-fit the benefits.

If I were a betting man, I would say that the stadium unskilled jobs will be filled by immigrants, students, second jobbers and the elderly. There is no mechanism in place to ensure that East Brightion residents get the jobs, nor is it known if they even want them.

 

[Wardy]

Folkestonegull what part of Folkestone do you live? I was born in FOlkestone and lived there until I was 21.

 

[dougdeep]

Hooray! Although it's now too late, someone's actually asking the right questions. Well done. The stadium was given permission ONLY because of the supposed socio-economic benefits.... and for no other reason. Prescott stated that the city doesn't deserve a stadium of right,

Proof please.

 

[antifalmer]

Proof please.

Read the first, flawed decision letter.

 

[ROSM]

doing an essay now, basically on public involvement with the planning process

it got me thinking, now obviously, the people of falmer were involved, very annoyingly so, but were the people of mouslecomb/that general area EVER involved/consulted in the planning process of the community stadium? it is often cited that one of the main reasons as to why the proposal was given permission was due to its location, near to a deprived area of Brighton & Hove, but were these people ever actually consulted by the club, and more importantly, the council, regarding the matter?

quite simply........yes.

They voted in the referendum (massiveley in favour)
They were consulted through residents groups
They were consulted through EB4U the initiative to support the troubles areas of Brighton
Their councillors both there and coldean and stanmer were involved

The Falmer residents were consulted ahead of the plans being lodged - the club met with the parish council.

There was also a public meeting at the Gardner arts centre especially for them. It turned into aonty Python esque meeting where questions were asked but when the club tried to answer nobody would let them.Simon Barnes of FPC uttered the immortal words 'we dont want answers we want to ask more questions!'

So once again Anti Falmer (septicman) has gone off on one without knowing the answer. he likes comparing apples with oranges and with him it is comparing damsons with plums.

He is a complete PLUM

 

[Lord Bracknell]

There's a big difference between community involvement in local affairs in a rural parish and community involvement in an urban neighbourhood.

Parish Councils can easily call a public meeting in a village hall and get a large number of people to turn out to debate an important local issue.

I've known meetings in Firle attract 100 people - out of a total population of about 300 - to discuss things like new landfill proposals that were being worked up locally. As a parish councillor, I was reasonably confident that whatever we did next about that particular issue had the backing of most people in the community.

Urban "community involvement" is much more difficult to assess. You always have to ask how representative the community's "leaders" are. Having said that, I've been involved for some years now, through my job, in providing services that are funded through the New Deal for Communities programme and specifically targeted at East Brighton. I've had a lot of dealings with a whole range of community based groups in East Brighton. I think I can honestly say that I've never come across any community activists in the area who have expressed any hostility to the idea of the Falmer Stadium. I'm sure that if there was widespread opposition (or even pockets of it), I'd have caught a sniff of this somewhere.

But I only work there. Maybe someone who lives in East Brighton can throw a different light on local feelings.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

It was Falmer Parish Council who funded the ludicrous "research" on regeneration that came up with the conclusion that Moulsecoomb is populated by the wrong sort of people.

Septicman is trying to pass that off as the definitive word on the subject.

If he looked a little further, he'd find documentation submitted by the Football Club that refutes the FPC conclusions comprehensively. The British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) are the real experts in this area. In 2002, they produced a "Guide to Achieving Effective and Lasting Regeneration" that identified the key components of successful urban regeneration.

The Falmer Stadium project will deliver every relevant component that BURA have identified.

That's why the government paid more attention to the Club's case than the flawed rubbishing of it by Falmer Parish Council.

 

[ROSM]

Indeed Lord B - the point I was making (and my list wasn't exhaustive as I had a 5 month old on my knee whilst typing) was that the most importantly the residents were asked via a referendum. In addition wherever a body existed they were consulted but ultimately if individuals didn't trust those bodies or didn't like the referendum result they were free to get together and fight it.

They didn't!

I was born and brought up in the East Brighton area (my parents still live there) and I've neither heard nor seen of ANY opposition from those residents.

But maybe perhaps septicman is alluding that these residents are too thick to get together and fight it and so they needed the inteliigent and articulate people like him to organise them and speak for them?