Major St Leonards housing development withdrawn

Hastings Borough Council (HBC) announced today (Thursday, March 10) that its application to build more than 190 homes at Bulverhythe Recreation Ground was being dropped.

The plans attracted widespread opposition, with a campiagn set up to fight the scheme and almost 140 people voicing their objections on the council’s planning portal.

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Organisations including the Environment Agency, Sport England, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Sussex County Archaeologist and Sussex Ornithological Society also made detailed objections to the proposals.

Last year, Pete Clarke, chairman of the Bulverhythe Protectors, wrote to Homes England to voice the campaign group’s opposition.

The council said its decision to withdraw the application was made after discussions with the Environment Agency and Homes England.

The authority said extensive site investigation work and flood modelling showed that work could not progress quickly enough to meet the terms of the Homes England funding the project relied on.

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A council spokesperson said: “The scheme, to build 192 Local Housing Allowance capped rented affordable homes for our local families and residents, was proposed as part of Homes England’s Local Authority Accelerated Construction programme, with almost £7m initially allocated to pursue planning permission and prepare the land for housing development.”

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Cllr Andy Batsford, lead councillor for housing and homelessness, said: “We have a massive housing crisis in our town with not enough rented affordable homes to meet the needs of our residents.

“The funding offered by Homes England gave us the opportunity to explore and develop proposals to deliver a number of these much-needed homes on this site and it would have been a dereliction of our duty as a council and to those local families, keyworkers and low paid residents desperate for a home not to have taken this opportunity.

“This funding has allowed us to model a range of different flood scenarios.

“Based on the latest Environment Agency advice, the modelling indicates a potential flood risk that is wider than previously understood and more work/modelling will need to be done going forward. This, combined with other site constraints have led us to withdraw the application.

“We are naturally disappointed that we are not able to progress this scheme and have always said that if we could not get the Environment Agency’s agreement on how to move forward with this site that we would not progress it.

“We’re already working with partners to find alternative sites which we can more easily develop and deliver the much-needed affordable homes as part of our 500 affordable homes programme commitment to the town.

“We will also continue to seek further external funding that can help us meet the local housing need and support our communities to prosper and thrive.”