P&T Neighbourhood Plan | PTNP Steering Group

Peacehaven & Telscombe Neighbourhood Plan

Steering Group Meetings – key highlights

December 2017:

SG Chair Cathy Gallagher (CG) outlined requirement to comply with Lewes District Council Core Strategy 1 and the emerging Plan 2 which is consulting now and will come into force in the next 2 years.

Presentation of options:

Future 1: Continue as we are
Future 2: Redefine Meridian Centre and consolidate the “High Street” (15 year timescale)
Future 3: A new Centre for a New Town “ (30 year plan)

Steering group broke into smaller groups and identified 3 areas:

Business and Retail
Community and Well Being
Environment and Design

Agreed Future 2 or 3 preferable: Meridian site more info needed. Future 1 ruled out.

January 2018:

Laurence O’Connor updated the meeting on behalf the A259 Action Group and their presentation to the Transport Scrutiny Panel at LDC on Monday 15thJanuary discussing the Economic, Air Quality and Social Impact of the congestion on the A259 from Newhaven to Rottingdean. The Big Petition achieved approx 17,000 signatures.

Lloyd Russell–Moyle MP gave an introduction and overview of the A259 update. In response to the presentations of Futures 1,2 and 3, he informed that Lewes Town had planned a reform of their shopping area over 30 years ago, and the Town Centre in the level area is still taking shape now. The Group needed to look at a longer pattern of change and the demographic could be profiled through research, the larger the change and need for infrastructure the more housing would be needed for increased population.

Thea Petts (TP) (Neighbourhood Planning Officer Lewes District Council and Eastbourne Borough Council) – introduced herself and updated the group on her role and where the Steering Group should be at this time.

COMMENTS

Concerns raised about Future 3 as presented in Consultant letter November 2017 as it did not take enough notice of greenspaces and unhappy at concentrating all retail within a narrower stretch along A259.
The re-work of the Meridian crucial as it is the largest site and is stuck in the 1970’s
Agreed the SG looks at the Futures again and alter them to a bespoke version for our area.

MARKETING

The Group agreed PTC proposal to design a new web page which would be linked to the PTC and TTC websites.
Peacehaven E-news will incorporate up to 500 words monthly to inform residents of the updates for SG and proposed dates of First Conversation.
Leaflets should go out to 8000 homes in Peacehaven and Telscombe, along with the Peacehaven and Deans Directories.
First Conversation Event to be staffed by Group Members possible dates for Peacehaven (Meridian Centre) Town Manager to liaise with Telscombe and East Saltdean as all Communities included.
These ‘Drop Ins’ will be endorsed as evidence and data collection for the NP. 9 Members offered to support. Will be advertised on website, social media and by leaflet.

Activities completed so far include:

Meeting the Neighbourhood Planning Officer
Creating the Steering Group
identifying how the Community will be involved
Drafting the Work Programme (Futures 1, 2 and 3).

The Town Manager provided a draft list of responses to Core Strategy 2. The NP must comply with LDC strategic policies.

February 2018:

Composition of the Steering Group:

Proposed by CG that the Steering Group consist of:

The appointed Chair/Vice Chair and Secretary,
The Chairs and Vice Chairs/Secretaries of Residents Associations and Focus Group
Chairs of Community groups within Saltdean, Peacehaven and Telscombe,
the Mayors of Peacehaven and Telscombe.

New steering group members could be proposed but would need to represent communities within the NP area. However, all meetings would remain open and would not be restricted to just steering group members.

TP confirmed that should Lower Hoddern Farm be approved, the emerging NP would need to accommodate the minimum of 255 additional new homes. Also, that windfall sites were not included in these numbers nor would they be.Recommended a call for sites be forthcoming as part of the “Conversations” to assess whether this amount could be accommodated in the towns.

First “Conversations” (public consultations) would be undertaken at start of April.O’Neill Homer consultants had agreed to provide some A1 boards that would contain basic information about the work undertaken so far and would set out three differing visions to engage the community level of interest and enthusiasm for change.The cost of providing A1 boards was £1800 for 3 boards or £1800 for 5 large prints which the group could have mounted to boards.

Launch:

April 3rd Peacehaven Town Council (time to be confirmed).

Saltdean:

April 7th 8th 11am - 3pm.

Peacehaven:

April 11th - 9am -3pm

April 12th – 5pm -8pm

April 13th - 9am – Midday

April 14th - All day

April 17th – 6pm – 9pm

Telscombe:

April 16th – 1pm -3pm

April 17th – 2pm -4pm

April 18th - 6pm – 9pm

April 23rd – 9am -3pm

The advantages/disadvantages of Futures 1, 2 and 3 were debated by the group and reported in the minutes.

MARCH 2018:

1000 leaflets had been printed and the leaflet had gone in the Peacehaven Directory and The Deans magazine.

The boards had been completed and were displayed at the back of the room.

The following comments were received:

Concern over the built-up area boundary line being shown, as this was being confused with the parish boundary and clearly didn’t include parts of the town.
Telscombe Village and Peacehaven Heights were not being shown on the maps and needed to be.
The colour depicting the suggested housing area was similar to the colour showing the protected designation of the Tye - some confusion caused as it looked like the Tye would be used for housing.

CG confirmed that the launch session would not go ahead on the 3rd April as not ready, but instead a press release would be undertaken to go to press on the 3rd. A separate session for Councillors at a later date.

The group then undertook an exercise on where they saw the towns in 2040 and what was needed to aid that progression. A summary of the findings were included in the minutes.

JUNE 2018:

Lower Hoddern Farm There was no third party right of appeal for Lower Hoddern Farm and could only challenge the process of the planning determination in the Courts via a legal challenge, though this is now likely to be out of time.

Telscombe village were approached to establish if they wanted a specific consultation evening with the “Futures” and to participate, but has received no response.

PCS through the Youth Mayor are becoming involved in the NP and rather than use paper forms they are to be encouraged to use online survey – local businesses to be included in the consultation as well.

Survey Results to date

Future 1 had 20 votes, Future 2 had 80 votes and Future 3 had 56 votes, however around 25 responses had been received electronically which had not be taken into account at this stage and many of these had voted for Future 3. So it was split between Future 2 & 3.
The greatest concerns for the future development of the area was the increase in traffic, over-subscribed doctors and local amenities.
Most people wanted more 2-3 bed houses with low cost and socially rented also being high on the list.
Predominantly people wanted to keep the area low rise.
Business: people wanted to see more shops in the area with more light industrial space, offices and market stalls also high on the list.
The environment people voted overwhelmingly for development of walking routes and better bridleways. Parks and the undercliff/beach were also important.