Amended plan for long-awaited Martlets Shopping Centre revamp in Burgess Hill approved
Amendments to the plan to redevelop the Martlets Shopping Centre in Burgess Hill have been approved.
The decision was made at Mid Sussex District Council’s (MSDC) District Planning Committee meeting, which was held on Thursday, August 21, at 2pm.
The plan was given the go-ahead with 11 votes in favour, no votes against and none abstaining. People can watch the meeting at www.youtube.com/@midsussexdistrictcouncil5616.
The council had received an application in May from New River Retail (GP3) and the District Council for the variation of conditions 6, 21 and 29 relating to the previously approved application DM/19/3331.
This new application sought to amend the approved drawings to ‘improve the viability and deliverability of the scheme’.
The redevelopment of the shopping centre has been proposed for years but delayed and changed several times.
The new proposal was recommended for permission before the meeting. The agenda’s Executive Summary said the redevelopment would ‘provide additional retail floorspace, a cinema, a bowling alley, a gymnasium, a hotel and 172 residential units, along with the reconfiguration of a public carpark and public realm improvements.”
It continued: “The legal effect of approving this application would be a new standalone planning permission (DM/25/1327) that sits alongside the previously approved scheme DM/19/3331. It would then be open to the applicant to decide which of the two planning permissions they choose to implement.”
It said the delivery of 172 residential units ‘within a highly accessible and sustainable location’ would boost the council’s housing supply so this should be ‘given substantial positive weight’ in the planning balance. It said: “It is considered that the scheme remains of a scale and form that is appropriate to its town centre location.”
But it added: “It is your Planning Officers’ view that there would be some harm to the setting of the Grade II* listed St John’s Church, and this would be at the ‘less than substantial’ level as defined in the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework).”
The document said the plan would result in the loss of some existing trees on the site. It said letters of objection were concerned about the loss of trees with some saying the proposed changes would result in ‘a significant loss of natural light’ to some addresses in Church Walk too.
The original redevelopment scheme was approved on March 14, 2016. This was for the demolition of a multi-storey car park, public library, community building and offices, and the provision of additional retail floor space, 142 flats, a multi-screen cinema, a public library, a hotel and the expansion of the existing car park for 283 car spaces and 180 cycle spaces.
The Martlets Hall was demolished in 2019 and then an amended proposal for the project was approved in July 2021 (DM/19/3331). The design and access statement for this version said it aimed to ‘reduce the retail footprint’.
In May this year MSDC leader Robert Eggleston (Lib Dem) posted to his ‘Take back the town – Burgess Hill’ Facebook page to call the latest application ‘a key milestone in the delivery of the redevelopment of the Martlets Shopping Centre’. He hailed it as ‘a sign of progress’.
This plan has followed years of delays and residents’ complaints about the area feeling empty.