Anybody live nears Toad's Hole Valley

[perseus]

I has this nagging feeling that Toad's Hole would rear its ugly head again.

I think it is too late now. The planning zoning for industrial use has put the land values up too much. No chance even if we did actually want it.

If Falmer does go up the swanny (or "gone in the ***** adur", depending on yer local argot), the alternatives are being reduced.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

The planning zoning for industrial use has put the land values up too much. No chance even if we did actually want it.

The last thing I want to do is help make a case for Toads Hole Valley, but let's at least get the facts right.

Toads Hole Valley is NOT "zoned" for anything.

As I thought had been made clear earlier up this thread, Toads Hole Valley was omitted from the Second Deposit Draft of the Local Plan.

There were objections to this omission (by Stiles Harold Williams, JW Cook Estates Ltd & Pecla Investments).

Hoile has suggested that the Local Plan be modified to provide for employment use on the site.

But the City Council has yet to consider Hoile's recommendation, and is free to reject it.

Insofar as there is any current, formally approved, designation of the site, it is simply AONB countryside.

 

[perseus]

The object of this thread was to obtain local knowledge for the realistic appraisal of the chances of Toad's Hole Valley of becoming a site for an Albion new stadium (a prospect I was lukewarm at even when it was in fashion) .

Basically, Superseagull came back with the local knowledge? inclination that the owner sees the value of the land too high to entertain such a possibility. Whether you think the value of the land is £10 million or £25 million is neither here or there. Both figures would knock out the possibility of the stadium.

On the face of it, it does not seem like that Toad's Hole has got a hope in hell of being nothing more than a mist-strewn benign trespass area for the foreseable future.

PS: the environmentalists's can't tell one scabious from another. It won't be Devil's Bit Scabious, it will be Small Scabious and Field Scabious. Not that is matters at all. It is just that Toad's Hole has got better quality weeds than a ploughed field at Falmer.

 

[coach03]

Toad's Hole? AONB? My Bottom ! It looks like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
All those kids on scrambling bikes..... can't we get them into footy?

By the way, is AONB an official designation or is it just a phrase trotted out by the NIMBYs similar to those who talk about the "80/20 Rule" as though it were an incontravertible rule of physics when we all know it's just a finger in the wind?

 

[perseus]

The long term plan is to remove the AONB status from Toad's Hole and redesignate the area as one Nature Conservation Importance or something similar. The latter designation does not mean much at all.

This will only? happen if the South Downs National Park is approved. This will not be within two years from now.

These are just meant to be facts, without any implications. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Storer68]

So as Falmer is rejected, primarily that the land is AONB, THV is hardly likely to fare any better when up for planning.

Ergo

If you reject Falmer becasue it is AONB, then you HAVE to reject THV for exactly the same reason

Another site bites the dust....

NEXT!!!!

 

[m20gull]

So as Falmer is rejected, primarily that the land is AONB, THV is hardly likely to fare any better when up for planning.

Ergo

If you reject Falmer becasue it is AONB, then you HAVE to reject THV for exactly the same reason

Another site bites the dust....

NEXT!!!!

Suppose THV turns out to be better than Falmer. (Don't worry, it won't). Falmer gets rejected. Club applies for THV. Should get passed as no viable alternative. And it won't be AONB by then anyway.

Suppose THV turns out to be worse than Falmer. We get Falmer.

Win-win, apart from the cost of the THV application.

 

[The Large One]

THV falls down on the transport issue anyway.

It's not a case of whether any site is better than Falmer, it's whether it can jump through the same hoops that Falmer has had to. As I understand it (I came back from France a week after the announcements were made), Falmer is basically approved in its own right. In other words the site is good enough on its own merits. We now have to prove that the others - including THV - are not.

 

[perseus]

A change is planned for Toad's Hole.

This has meant two things:

1) the land value has gone up because it is pencilled in for development in the future (far future on the current trends)

2) when Falmer was first it was sacrosant AONB land and the South Downs Conservation Board would have objected.

I am not advocating Toad's Hole. I am just getting the facts straight.

Local knowledge often plays a part because I do not know the area very well.

For some reason (according to Lord Bracknell) the local planning department has not allocated a use for it in the new proposed Local Plan.

For the record, I do not think it is a viable second choice even of Falmer comes a cropper. But it not what I think that counts. Hoile may be the person whose opinion for counts for something on this one.

I know from other areas that are AONBs that have been excluded from the proposed National Park the surveyors have already been on the land, not just one lot either.

They want to make some money and they would want to build houses if they can get away with it as this way they can do it without the work of finding a business to occupy it.

If they were really greedy, they would to build a supermarket. Sounds familiar?

We are fortunate that neither Hoile or Collyer have advocated Toad's Hole. (I would have thought it was streets ahead of Sheepcote.)

Neither have the objectors advocated Toad's Hole. This is because the NIMBYs are NOT leading the objections to Falmer, it is the South Downs Conservation Board and to advocate Toad's Hole would undermine their argument about not building on AONBs. The SDCB have not advocated Waterhall for the same reason. They have chosen Sheepcote because it is not AONB land. Simple as that.

PS: If they can remove Toad's Hole from its protection they could also remove the Falmer bit that it is the AONB. It is nothing to do with the environment or best planning, it is all to do with politics and power and an arbitary AONB line that the planners drew on the edge of the urban areas 30 years ago.

PS: And they plan to give the new South Downs National Park planning powers!? And they will not even be elected so we cannot even vote them out.

Draw yer own conclusions.

 

[dougdeep]

I thought the owners of Toads Hole didn't want to sell anyway?

 

[perseus]

I would not expect them to sell, not whilst there is the remote chance of getting houses built on the land, or an industrial estate. They stand to make lots of money that way. A stadium would be a pittance compared.

However, in order to get Planning Permission for houses they would have to take the same route as Albion over Falmer, through the Public Inquiry process etc.