Planners defer amusement park hearing

The application – for a range of works at The Stade Family Amusement Park – had been due for discussion by Hastings Borough Council’s planning committee on Wednesday (September 12).

But, after the item was called, the council’s planning service manager Eleanor Evans asked committee members to defer. She said this was because the application’s description was not considered to make a controversial element of the scheme clear enough to a casual reader.

This would be the extension of the park’s boundaries by replacing a footpath between the beach and the A259 with a new narrower path, Ms Evans said.

Ms Evans said: “The reason we want the application, and are requesting that it is, deferred is that we need to make sure the description makes clear to anybody who sees the site notice exactly what is being proposed.

“Obviously it doesn’t go into the nth detail but it does need to outline the broad elements of it. One of those is that it would, by virtue of repositioning the footpath, enlarge the amusement park area.”

“We want to specifically refer to that in a revised description, put up a site notice and publicise it. In order to do that we are requesting the item is deferred.  Without doing that, considering the item, any decision made could be subject to a judicial review.”

Councillors agreed to defer the application – which is recommended for approval – until after the new site notice could be published.

According to an officers’ report, planners received more than 18 objections to the application. This included two petitions, one of which is considered to be invalid, the report says.

The report says many of the objections related to the new footpath being gated at both ends and closed off to the public. Planning officers say this would not be the case and public access to the new path would be ‘unobstructed’.

Huw Oxburgh , Local Democracy Reporting Service