Rye Town Council will consider next Monday, December 7, the planning application to build 32 homes and a new community centre in Tilling Green on the site of the former school, now used as a community centre.
The application, from Rye Partnership, who run the existing centre for the time being, and housing association Amicus Horizon, has resulted in a number of objections about its size, height and design, flood risks, and the fate of services provided by the centre.
The proposed development is already controversial as the town council felt in the summer that not enough time or information had been provided for proper consultation with only a day time consultative meeting and only a site plan available afterwards.
When Amicus addressed a council meeting in April County Councillor Keith Glazier, representing Rye Partnership, said he was unaware that the new community centre was now to be single storey only.
At that meeting Amicus project manager Lisa Shead said: “The understanding was that a new centre would be built before the one was demolished, but the site doesn’t physically allow for this because the new one sits on the footprint of the old one”.
Amicus were asked for a site plan showing this, but it was not forthcoming. However in the summer the plans did change, and the new centre is now in a corner of the site well away from the existing building.
At the time residents were only provided with a site map and had no details of how buildings would look ; and most of those details have only just been provided with the application. However comparisons now of the existing site map and the site map of the proposals with the application show the new centre well away from the existing building.
[Editor’s note: As a local resident living in nearby Valley Park I have therefore objected to the application because it ignores Rother District Council’s own planning strategy (Policy CO1 (iii)(a) on community facilities) which says existing community facilities must be maintained or alternatives provided before developments can proceed]
There is therefore no apparent reason why a new community centre can not be built before the old building is demolished. In near by Valley Park the builders have worked very close to existing occupied buildings during the development, and the current development in Cinque Ports Street also shows how builders can work right next to existing buildings on a very constricted site. The issues are simply ones of good planning and good management.
Objections made to the application include flood risks on the site and the surrounding area; the impact on the area of a four storey block of flats; fire risks and other potential and avoidable problems associated with the flats, and questions about the long term viability of the proposed new community centre.
The application is a joint one from Amicus and Rye Partnership, but the Partnership is pulling out of the centre and will no longer run it on a day to day basis. A Community Interest Company (CIC) is being set up which could run the new centre in place of the Partnership.
But the current single storey design is clearly smaller than the present building, though an earlier design did have two storeys. And the developers have said that the new design could be adapted to two storeys.
As the existing centre already serves the adjacent Valley Park development (which is still growing) as well as Tilling Green, there are also concerns about whether it meets existing needs, let alone future needs, and whether it is (as currently planned) too small to be financially viable.
Rother District Council has already approved changes to the Valley Park development which increase both the number and size of the dwellings there, so demand for community facilities in that part of Rye is growing.
Another objection, from Col Anthony Kimber of REACT (Rye Emergency Action Community Team), about flood risks (both surface water and sewage) – despite lengthy consultations beforehand with Amicus, and known problems in the area – also begs the question of whether Amicus is listening to people about concerns which have been raised over many months.
Charles Harkness is a Rye Town Councillor