A £60 million scheme to build 148 flats on the site of a former car showroom in Hove has been granted planning permission.
The scheme was approved despite concerns about the effect of the three proposed blocks – one of them 11 storeys high – on people living near by.
And councillors were also worried about more traffic and parking pressure around the site which used to be the KAP Peugeot garage, in Newtown Road.
Objectors sent 51 letters and emails opposing the scheme to Brighton and Hove City Council.
And this afternoon (Wednesday 22 April) the council’s Planning Committee held a “virtual” meeting when it also heard from a concerned residents’ group.
Mike Gibson, from Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum, told the committee that the proposals were an overdevelopment of the site and he said that public engagement about the plans had been “woeful”.
Professor Gibson warned of gridlock unless a traffic and parking management scheme was drawn up for the area.
He said that it needed to take into account discount chain Lidl’s plans to open at the Goldstone Retail Park and the 800 homes recently approved on the Sackville Trading Estate.
Labour councillor Jackie O’Quinn, who represents Goldsmid ward, spoke on behalf of people living near the KAP Peugeot site in Newtown Road.
Councillor O’Quinn criticised the scheme’s lack of family homes, saying that it was skewed towards smaller units. She also said the blocks would reduce the light in neighbours’ homes.
Fellow Labour councillor John Allcock, who also represents Goldsmid, said that affordable homes were one of the council’s biggest priorities, with 9,000 people on the waiting list for a home.
He said that the council expected 40 per cent of homes in bigger schemes to be “affordable” but developers were coming up short.
Savills director of planning Guy Dixon spoke for the applicants, Tudor Holdings and KAP Peugeot, two of the companies owned by the Furneaux family, from Kent.
Mr Dixon said that the company held two public events and met the neighbourhood forum three times before submitting its plans.
He also said that the proposed basement, which would provide 103 parking spaces, would be expensive but would help prevent overspill on to neighbouring streets.
Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh said that the latest plans combined with other schemes recently granted planning permission could result in an extra 2,600 people living in the area.
And hundreds more were likely to move into the Hove Gardens flats due to be built just south of the railway line, in Ellen Street.
Councillor Fishleigh said that the council was due to approve its 10-year blueprint for homes and jobs, known as City Plan Part Two.
Having looked through it, she added: “I was expecting to see a plan for this entire area. Sadly, there was nothing about new infrastructure.
“So there are no plans for new roads, new bridges, new tunnels, new flyovers. No new bus routes.”
Congestion and air pollution at the Old Shoreham Road crossroads where Nevill Road and Sackville Road meet “is only going to get worse”.
She said: “There is also nothing in the City Plan about new doctors’ surgeries, new dentists, new opticians, more schools and new leisure facilities in this area.”
Three other councillors echoed her opposition to the scheme – Conservative Carol Theobald, Green Leo Littman and Labour’s Nick Childs, the deputy chair of the Planning Committee. All voted against the plans.
Councillor Theobald said: “I was quite shocked that there could be an 11-storey and eight-storey block in that particular place.
“It would stand out like a sore thumb and will impact on the surroundings at that point.”
Councillor Littman said that it was the “wrong time to put the development here”.
The offer of 22 per cent “affordable” housing was described as insufficient by Councillor Childs.
Green councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty, a former chair of the Planning Committee, said that the area was in one of the tall building zones allocated in City Plan Part One.
He said: “It manages to be well designed and do a lot on that particular site.
“There is not nearly the quantity of affordable homes we need. It is at least some affordable homes on a site that isn’t doing an awful lot at the moment.”
And Labour councillor Daniel Yates said: “This is making a far better use of the land than what is there at the moment.
“It’s part of a developing piece of the city where we’re seeing the land use change. It’s an appropriate site we have identified for higher development.
“I would always like to see more affordable housing but I do not think this developer is trying to hide or mask their ability to provide affordable housing.”
Councillors voted six to four in favour of the plans.
The applicant was asked to make a financial contribution to the council of £62,550 towards sustainable transport costs, £53,000 towards secondary and sixth form education and £25,000 towards public art, totalling more than £140,000.
Lidl + hundreds of flats. Eek. I almost bought somewhere near here so pleased I didn’t! Will be worth nothing now. Newton road used to be okay. Now on edge of massive estate! Nightmare
ofcourse they did as usual they ignore the public and also the fact that the infrastructure cannot support all these so called plans. It’s all part of there so called city plan to turn Brighton into a little London (look at the congestion and pollution there)
This is shocking. I can’t believe this got approved.
I don’t recall a single letter to the residents at The Chrome Works, the most affected people. This will ruin our home and the area is not sufficient to deal with that many new homes.
Deeply saddened by this
The so-called Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum is short of actual neighbour members, padded out with members from as far away as Wish ward, was generated in 2012 by myself & Gibson but turned into a last hurrah Cabal controlled by Fonthill (& close by) residents soon after Council recognition in 2014.
That recognition empowered creation of a subordinate area plan which is REQUIRED to accord with the City Plan, be agreed by public referendum & then be a view ‘to be taken into account’ – and no more -concerning plannîng decisions. Until then Mike Gibson speaks for himself as a local resident ONLY.
I FLED that group when the monologuing became physically debilitating & the unrepresentative weirdness (of 3 of the commlittee men especially) became labyrinthine, boggy, overcomplicated & bizarrely hubristic – megalomaniacal even!
Their remit expired in 2019 & the opportunity to quietly retire these gentlemen was not seized by BHCC which agreed to extend their never ending tail chasing while developers just got on with their intentions.
Some of their research should eventually find a use – especially the ideas from architect David Kemp but the forum lost its way long long ago.
Indeed BHCC has decided to Masterplan the area behind the Clarendon & Ellen Estate from Ellen St up to the railway lines & one assumes the budget for it has now produced SOMETHING. I must enquire…again.
Meanwhile – don’t expect ANY of these newly consented mega-schemes to survive Covid19. I don’t.
Very interesting about the cabal!
Fantastic news…that protects some of the green belt and provides homes near to the station. Much better than building executive homes on the downs.