For a number of years the main hope for the provision of more social housing and affordable homes in Rye has been the development potential of the Tilling Green Community Centre.
Since the withdrawal from negotiations in 2017 by a housing association Amicus, despite plans being well advanced, and following advice relating to flood plains by the Environment Agency, no further proposals have been made.
Rye Partnership, which has a lease on the land from East Sussex County Council (whose leader is, by coincidence, also chairman of the Partnership) and have been charged with responsibility for its development for the last 20 years, have now finally decided this this is beyond them and have handed back responsibility to ESCC. Their full statement is as follows:
“At our recent AGM we presented our business plan that outlined our priorities and focus for the next four years which include development of the Fisheries site and Tilling Green Community Centre.
“The Partnership requested a report from one of its directors who has significant experience in local planning coupled with recent relevant knowledge having been a part of a local development scheme. These report findings which were presented at the Directors meeting in May 2022 and set out clear reasons why the Rye Partnership would not be best placed to deliver a housing project on the Tilling Green site.
“The Partnership is pleased to have now received the 30-year leases on the site and will continue to maintain the open space until such time as the County Council confirm that they have a scheme that will deliver the housing that we all know is needed in Rye.
“Rye Partnership is committed to helping Rye provide affordable housing in appropriate places and is hopeful that proposals are submitted to ESCC for the playing field at Tilling Green which fulfil local needs.
“We understand anyone interested in submitting a development proposal should contact Nigel Brown, Assistant Director of Property at the County Council.”
Image Credits: Britainy Rae .
If Rye Partnership have decided to do nothing about affordable housing on this site it begs the questions,
1) Why are they still there?
2) Why do they need a 30 year lease (which presumably precudes anyone else from doing anything there for that period) and
3) Why were they granted this lease?
Is there another agenda?
I can reveal the agenda. The ESCC is increasingly acting as a quasi-property developer, or as a partner to developers. Central government funding cuts have forced the Council into a position where the latter sells its public land to developers or private individuals and then demands a share of the future property-related profit. This can be substantial. It is highly likely that any Tilling Green Community Centre (originally a primary school) development will follow this model, with ESCC demanding a share — perhaps 50% — of any development profit. The Council will of course argue that it has to maximise revenue from its land and property assets. However, these property deals lack transparency. As far as I know, ESCC does not make the details known openly to local communities. I could be wrong, and would be happy if ESCC could tell me where to find the information on its website. If these details exist, they are no doubt hidden in some obscure internal Council document. Why doesn’t ESCC come clean about these hidden property deals? It’s been pointed out that we have the incredible situation whereby Rother District Council (the planning authority) is approving planning projects in which county council ESCC has a massive financial interest. On the surface, this seems to be a clear conflict of interest. I’ve nothing against the Council making money from its land holdings — but local people surely need to know the full story about these property deals. There’s also the question of whether councils should be selling public land, which could be retained as open green spaces or environmentally protected, when these spaces simply get concreted over by developers for profit. Rye News, why don’t you do some investigative journalism and look into these ESCC property deals, please? Nick, you raise some interesting questions.
One must agree with Nick ,most of us remember the debacle over the Central garage site,one minute being cleared with partnership money to be our new library, and the next jumping into bed with the council, and deny shoppers a decent retail unit in the high street. What a shame when David Cameron was PM, he didn’t keep his promise to abolish these Quangos.