Despite the recommendation by planning officers to approve the retrospective application (HS/FA/20/00884) for a large house in the Martineau Lane area, Councillors voted to refuse it (8-1, with one abstention). What now for the building known as ‘Son of Bunker’? What next for local planning? Bernard McGinley reports. (References are to the video timings).
Up at Bachelor’s Bump in Ore a new planning row is heating up. A retrospective application is seeking approval for works that were previously refused. Locals are angered by what they see as rogue development. The overbearing house is on a laneside slope and the skyline. The Council have yet to decide what to do. Who will prevail? Bernard McGinley reports from the Country Park borders, with apologies for so many numbers.
Open debate and argument about the legal and other merits of a case is part of the planning process. That’s the theory anyway. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has other ideas. Bernard McGinley reports on recent changes, including a surprise development.
Hastings Borough Council’s record in dealing with the Bunker in Rocklands caravan park is not one to be proud of, involving as it does years of evasion and failure to engage with complaints. Now it is claiming the non-existence of documents that tangibly exist, as Chris Hurrell of Save Ecclesbourne Glen makes clear.
The Rocklands mess does not get better. The caravan park’s current retrospective planning application for the Bunker uglifying the Country Park doesn’t mention the Bunker balcony extension put in after the Planning Inspector’s decision to forbid it. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) doesn’t mention it either, and has shelved its enforcement enquiry pending hearing of the application. Years after this controversy started, it remains all not good enough. Report and photos by Bernard McGinley.
With its latest planning application, Rocklands Caravan Park is seeking to go round (or supersede) the Planning Inspector’s decision regarding the notorious ‘Bunker’ beside Hastings Country Park. Will Hastings Borough Council (HBC) require remeasurement of the misshapen building before deciding on the application, to know what it’s dealing with? What about the other works on site? Bernard McGinley tries to find out, again.
Rocklands Caravan Park and controversy seem to be inseparable bedfellows. Can Rocklands ever be a good neighbour to Hastings Country Park? It’s not impossible. But there’s no sign of it yet, as Bernard McGinley (a Friend of the Country Park) finds as he looks into the latest breaches of planning permission, and calls for firm action by the council.
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