The developer of a controversial seven-storey development of around 130 retirement seaside apartments must make changes to secure planning permission.
Eastbourne Borough Council’s planning committee voted unanimously in a show of cross-party unity last night to defer the planning application for a site on the western edge of Sovereign Harbour.
The main points of contention were the height of the three blocks, the number of apartments and the concrete design. Planning permission was granted in 2016 for 67 apartments in a five-storey block and 12 houses.
The current application by developer Untold Living shows the tallest block as two storeys higher and the total number of flats as nearly doubled at 137. Ten houses were built at White Point on the site but the next stage of the build did not take place.
Councillor Hugh Parker (Lib Dem, St Anthony’s), chair of the planning committee, said: “It is rather large, to say the least: it is an oversized development and parking is not sufficient.”
“Do you want your legacy to be the council that allowed a mammoth and unnecessary overdevelopment?”
Caroline Lynam, Sovereign Harbour Residents’ Association
The eight members of the committee voted unanimously to defer the application so the developer could revise the scheme. Council officers have the authority to refuse permission if the scale of the building and design is not changed.
Around two dozen members of the public attended the meeting at Eastbourne Town Hall last night; some 350 objections to the scheme had been received.
Caroline Lynam, secretary of the Sovereign Harbour Residents’ Association, addressed the meeting, saying that the current plans meant that buildings would overshadow neighbouring properties in Anguilla Close and Martinique Way.
She said: “If this proposal goes ahead, it will be a significant landmark, visible from Hastings to Beachy Head. Do you want your legacy to be the council that allowed a mammoth and unnecessary overdevelopment?
“Or do you want to be remembered as the public servants who conserved and curated the seafront, the coastline, the integrity of our historic buildings…?”
She later told the Eastbourne Reporter: “It is better than we hoped for. We hope there are positive negotiations now with the developers and we thank the council and the residents.”
Councillor Jane Lamb (Cons, Meads) told the meeting it was an important site, a gateway to the harbour and next to a historic monument, Martello Tower 66 (above), built more than 200 years ago.
She said: “I can’t see that the design picks up any of the characteristics of its maritime location. From the sea, it would look like a large concrete block.
“I don’t want to knock a development on this site, but I believe there are things that need to be reconsidered.” She proposed the deferral of the application.
Councillor Teri Sayers-Cooper (Lib Dem, Hampden Park) said that the number of parking spaces, set at 146 in the original application, were inadequate at 70 spaces. “It is already a struggle to park around there.”
The planned one and two-bedroom apartment scheme would be aimed at people over 75 who would also buy care packages, said the developer’s agent Jonathan Buckwell, of DHA Planning, addressing the meeting. Untold Living would operate the scheme as well as develop the buildings.
He said it was “carefully designed” to provide extra care; residents could choose to have all their meals cooked and their cleaning done. He also said much older people tended not to drive so a large number of parking spaces were not required.
Untold Living would also contribute to improvements to the public open space and to a link between the end of the seafront promenade and the walkway around the marina.
Last month, an online meeting was hosted by Eastbourne Conservative MP Caroline Ansell with Untold Living chief executive Russell Jewell; Nigel Goodyear, Conservative councillor for Sovereign ward in the harbour; and Frances Lawrence, chair of the residents’ association.
Ms Ansell had hoped to arrange a further community meeting with Untold Living but revealed last week that the developers told her it was “not actively considering any change to the scale”. She wrote in a Facebook post that “there was no point in further dialogue at this stage”.
Eastbourne Borough Council leader Stephen Holt registered as an objector to the scheme in January, on the basis it would be four metres higher than neighbouring block, was not in keeping with its surroundings and the historic Martello Tower, and that traffic flow would be inappropriate.
Liberal Democrat Coun Holt is not a ward councillor at Sovereign Harbour and is not a member of the planning committee so was able to register his objections as a citizen.
A flood risk assessment by consulting engineers Campbell Reith shows the area at high risk of tidal flooding and as being in a “high probability” zone of sea flooding as defined by the Environment Agency. The agency has, however, registered ‘no objection’ to the development.
:: This is a community interest company and the content is free to read. But it’s not free to produce, so if you’d like to see this kind of reporting continue, you can buy me a virtual coffee every month or donate a few quid. It would be hugely appreciated.
