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2005 Lewes House Site

Round 1, ding ding!

Last updated 13.4.2004 see here

Read stories and follow links from this site that are relevant to the proposed development at the Lewes House site here in Lewes, East Sussex.
Where? [www.streetmap.co.uk]

Read the story so far

Form letters of objection to download and print

District Council website objection form

Download the letter sent to all District Councilors following the meeting on 21.1.2004
Click here 732k pdf document

Tuesday 13 April
Rod Liddle in the The Spectator

The demands made by The Barker Report for new buildings to satisfy the percieved demand for new homes is picked up by Rod Liddle in The Spectator:

Quote:
According to our government, there is a shortage of affordable housing in this country, and particularly in the south of England. As a result the government, in the redoubtable, if humorous, figure of John Prescott, intends to build hundreds of thousands of new houses every year in order to meet this perceived ‘demand’. Soon, everywhere you look south of the Wash there will be a profusion of stark naked Barratt estates, each consisting of 200 homes, every dwelling of which will — by law — possess a disabled-access ramp and — by dint of fashion — a covered car port and eight square yards of lawn. Chav City cometh, every eight miles.

If this is an exaggeration, it is not much of one. Mr Prescott has already identified four areas where he will bung in most of the houses — the Thames ‘gateway’; around Ashford in Kent; a square of Northamptonshire near Milton Keynes; and a soon-to-be-benighted area which will henceforth be known as the A11 Conurbation (sounds lovely, doesn’t it?), stretching north for 60 miles from London to Peterborough.

But that’s not all. The government has also accepted en bloc the recommendations of the Barker review final report, which swallows whole the absurd — and elsewhere discredited — notion of ‘predict and provide’ and recommends, among other things, a loosening or ‘greater flexibility’ of planning constraints. These ‘constraints’ are in fact the locally considered responses to proposed new developments, which have hitherto prevented hideous new bungalows being built in your neighbour’s back garden. Kate Barker recommends that such localised, selfish nimbyism be ignored and the bungalows built regardless of local opposition.

The government’s response to an apparent demand for more houses is not a conservative response. Nor for that matter is it a Green response or a socialistic response. It is a congenital idiot’s response. In a fair world it would provide the opposition parties with a platform on which to campaign against and unseat the government — but for some reason the opposition parties seem reluctant to take up the fight, except for the Greens. The reason for this is that everybody else has accepted the shibboleth: we need more new houses.

Read the article here: http://www.spectator.co.uk

Monday 8 February
Rethink on [timing of] plans

We are looking forward to the 'thrashed out' new timing for the development after Lewes District Council expressed a preference for the two schemes of Lewes House and Walwers Lane to be combined.

Cllr Neil Commin, lead planning member is quoted in the Sussex Express: 'Our aim from the beginning has always to ensure that this important site produces a quality development that meets the needs of the town.'

'The proposed new library and new pedestrian access routes will bring substantial benefits to the needs of the town. The development brief combined as one project the development of the Lewes House Site and the Walwers Lane sites and I am sure that this is the right approach.'

'My preference is that we keep to the original idea that there is one application for the Lewes House and Walwers Lane sites and I have asked both SHG and Ash Mill to work together to achieve that. I am determined that when we grant planning permission we will do so knowing that the result will be a development that the town can be proud of.'

This is great news and very reassuring on one level but I am sure many would like to know District Council's opinion of the SHG plans and which of the many issues we have raised over the past few weeks are also of concern to them. We wonder which elements of the design are crucial to 'meeting the needs of the town'.

Ringmer Revolt
We attended the recent planning meeting where a development in Ringmer for 85 houses was rejected as 'a blot on the landscape' and where some of the proposed buildings were described as 'not in keeping... and some will be very prominent.' The plan was deferred so a new planning application should be expected sometime soon.

Many of the issues that were key on this greenfield site in Ringmer mirror the concerns here in Lewes town centre and we would hope similar criticisms will be made during any planning meetings on the Lewes House Site.

Peacehaven plans
We were also interested to hear of PROUD [Peacehaven Residents Opposed to Urban Development] and have been in contact with the group who are opposing a plan for 300 new homes and a sewage works at Lower Hodden Farm in Peacehaven. The problems again would seem to stem from a demand by the Government on Lewes District Council for 4,600 extra homes need to be built within its area by 2011.
read the full article > here

Friday 30 January
‘The Battle of Lewes’

Pages 12 and 13 of The Argus have a well informed feature by Lilly Peel on the issues and history surrounding the Lewes House site - with a large photograph from Chapel Hill into the site. If the weather holds up over the weekend a quick walk up the hill to view the town will reveal the degree to which new development in Lewes has filled every gap. The last green area near the middle of town now being the back of Lewes House. Imagining the new developments filling the space brings on a touch of vertigo.

The Sussex Express carries a front page story of the Friends of Lewes objections to the scheme - which mentions the need to look at the usefulness of the Baxters site in allowing access to avoid the breaking of the walls in Church Twitten. There is also news of the Lewes Labour Party donation of £100 towards expenses involved in the campaign - which is very much appreciated. Inside are two letters on the subject: one from Pamela Lady Wedgewood [as published here first] and a second from David Arscott who compares the inch-perfect attention to detail required by planners in St Nicholas Lane to the apparent lack of care and attention paid to a much larger area.

It would appear that we have a few days grace from the Planning Department as letters and emails will be accepted on Monday. There is a form here on the Lewes District website where you can easily inform them of your objections [or support].

Thursday evening 29 January
Stop the press again

Check tomorrow's Argus for an article on the Twittens!

Thursday 29 January
Green and pleasant

Sorting through files unearthed these images - small and not very good quality but one does forget how beautiful this area behind School Hill House and Lewes House was in 1999!

< Click image to view all

Tuesday 27 January
Your letters

Thank you to everyone who has dropped in or emailed copies of their letters of objection - without exception they are more eloquent and succinct in their criticism of the plans than our own efforts.

With permission we would put copies up here on the web site for all to view. This morning we were passed the following wonderful letter that puts this development into the much bigger picture:

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

In registering with you my objection, from every point of view, to your proposal for two three storey blocks of flats on the Lewes House Site may I put my response into perspective?

In the later 1950's and 1960's acts of vandalism of the nature of the development you are putting forward were perpetrated in the centres of many of our historic towns. There were in those days two excuses: 1) There were many spaces left by bomb damage. For alternative solutions to bomb craters of a far more tactful nature I refer you to Germany, in particular Aachen and Dresden. 2) 'Modern Architecture' was only widely accepted in this country after the second world war, and was then universally applicable. Three towns where the damage done has been lamented ever since are Canterbury, Worcester and Gloucester. York only escaped (in part) the same disastrous treatment because the Council appointed as advisor Lord Esther, who explained that if they preserved the integrity and antiquity of their City it would become much more prosperous than if they spoilt it. In the event York has flourished exceedingly, and it has become as attractive to visitors as Stratford on Avon. Its desirability as a place to live is also evident.

In the context of the post-war enthusiasm for Functionalism belongs Lewes's County Hall, which has done so much to violate our town. I must belong to the first generation of English people who have been involved in schemes (notably Paternoster Steps by St Paul's) to replace buildings erected in their own lifetime. Such a fate for County Hall must be devoutly desired by most Lewes residents.

Most of us have learned from the over-confident mistakes of our immediate forebears. Yet a serious intrusion into the heart of the Lewes Conservation area is at this moment threatened. These blocks will do serious harm to the Medieval character of the layout of the town, with its Twittens connecting the upper ground of the Castle with the lower ground of the Priory. Every house within range will lose its light, its views its quiet and its privacy. The crowding of so many dwellings onto this small site will render then potential slums, and infect all around them this the same disease.

This was going to be the site of the new Library Lewes so greatly needs. What is the matter with the government of this town? It fails to do what needs to be done (flood defences) and tries to do what will bring nothing but harm and misery.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Tudor-Craig, FSA (Pamela Lady Wedgewood)

Monday 26 January
Good enough for Woking
www.guardian.co.uk/renewable < read the full article here

A missed opportunity? It would appear our Surrey cousins are streets ahead in the practical and everyday use of remarkable renewable energy generators in unremarkable towns!

An article by Paul Brown in today's Guardian triumphs the energy policy in Woking. Quote: Scattered across its borough are mini-power stations, district heating schemes and thousands of electricity-generating cells on roofs. This has made the borough a world leader in providing energy without relying on the national grid. The town centre, including the council offices and Holiday Inn, are entirely energy self-sufficient and surplus electricity is exported.

The whole of the Lewes House site is bathed in sun for most of the day - perfect for some electricity-producing photovoltaic cells.

Quote: At first sight Woking is an unremarkable town, unless you happen to spot the solar-powered ticket machines in the car parks or the estates with their roofs covered by thousands of tiny electricity-producing photovoltaic cells. But it is the way alternative sources of energy have been used that makes the town revolutionary.

As the sun goes down and electricity stops flowing from the photovoltaic cells, the combined heat and power plant starts up. When the insulation in the council offices means meeting rooms start getting too warm, the spare heat is used to drive the chillers which keep staff cool.

Sadly there is no evidence on Miller Bourne plans for Walwers Lane for any renewable energy source - just a big plastic roof made of PVC. A by-product of the production of PVC is chlorine. The manufacture of PVC is linked to the production of chlorine to a degree unmatched by any other material. Want to know more about PVC? www.mindfully.org/Plastic/

So Woking's energy generating by-product is water and ours is err... none. Our by-product will be Chlorine from the production of PVC: toxic waste in disguise.

Friday 23 January
Front page news
http://www.lewestoday.co.uk < read the full article here

Read all about it in the Sussex Express! Following the story and photograph on Church Twitten in the previous weeks edition, Wednesday's meeting is reported by John Eccles and appears on the front page with an illustration of the elevations on Walwers Lane. See also the comment on the letters page. Quoted in the article is Mr Hawkins from Architects Miller Bourne as follows:'Combined with high quality windows, reinstatement of flint walls to Walwers Lane and good quality external pavings, this development will compliment the town centre and make best use of this derelict site.' We'll have to wait and see if this means a U-turn on the removal of Walwers Lane walls.

We could perhaps point out to Mr Hawkins that the site is only derelict because Lewes District Council demolished the buildings with undue haste on vacating in 2000. Up until that time the Walwers Lane was effectively an attractive walled garden. The grounds were impeccable, the grass was mowed regularly and the plants and shrubs around the site put many of the surrounding gardens to shame.

The small low rise buildings would have been a good home to small businesses, find a new life as workshops or studios and perhaps have been found a use by Lewes organisations. This could possibly have earned Lewes District Council some rental income over the last few years and stopped the quality of the environment from degenerating into the unsightly mess it currently appears.

See images below of Walwers Lane before demolition of the Council Offices.



Thank you to those who have copied us their letters of objection, expressed support and helped by feeding morsels of information and ideas since Wednesday. Have a nice weekend!

Thursday 22 January
Over 100 names on the list!

Thank you to everyone who attended the public meeting at All Saints on Wednesday night.

The degree of empathy with this part of Lewes, the indignation over the flailing planning process and drubbing the plans got from the audience that evening was startling!

We will publish here in the next few days all the material that was on display at the meeting as well as any other information that may be of interest that we have collected in these past two weeks. Do please also share with us anything you think could be of interest to others.

The two form letters and our basic guide to objecting will be available to download and print out shortly.

Wishing you the best of luck with your two objection letters!

Contact us via email:

The story so far:

Planning applications have been submitted to Lewes District Council for the Walwers Lane part of the site by Southern Housing Group for 2 x three-storey blocks of apartments, comprising 34 “affordable” dwellings for 2 to 4 persons each.

Another application has been submitted for breaching both sides of Church Twitten (ancient and listed) walls in order to gain access to the site for emergency services, rubbish collection etc.

Not only are breaches in Church Twitten planned but almost the entire length of the flint Twitten walls in Walwers Lane are to be replaced with a low brick wall and railings.

The two proposed buildings would be massive, overbearing and built down to a price using inappropriate materials. What space remains around the buildings would deliver an extremely very poor quality environment for the residents in what is a area of outstanding beauty and unique design. The needs of families, children and disabled residents are not fully accounted for and numerous thoroughly consulted issues concerning the site have be ignored.

The proposed height of the blocks means that many existing houses and gardens in Walwers Lane, St Nicholas Lane, Friars Walk and Lansdown Place would be seriously overlooked – and due to the scale and height of the building forms will have a hugely detrimental effect on the townscape of Lewes.

The commonly held desire for a something special and innovative tailored to fit into this part of Lewes with care and attention has been junked by Lewes District Council's preferred developers’ choice of developer!

The plans are available for inspection at Lewes District Council’s offices in Southover Road. Go and view them; you have until 30th January 2004 to submit your written comments.

Don’t let this important and unique site be exploited by a developer without having your say.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY 21st JANUARY
PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS PLANNING APPLICATION
8:15pm All Saints Centre, Friars Walk

Email us on hello@leweshousesite.co.uk

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