Update - August 22 2012
A FURTHER VIEW FROM THE KING
Looking at the other published viewpoints on this issue I have to ask the question of Cllr Rod Main as to why he is so very out of step with everyone else on this. He openly admits in his views on this resubmission that he does not want to see a supermarket on the Railway Quay site. It would appear from the other views expressed that local people DO want to see a supermarket on that site.
Geoff King
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KING'S VIEW
It is great news that Arrowcroft and Tesco have not given up on Newhaven despite the best efforts of ESCC to 'sink' the proposal last time round.
After all, what have ESCC ever done for Newhaven. The 'Ring Road', the 'Incinerator'? Need I say more!
I will be responding more fully to LDC planning department in favour of the acceptance of planning notice LW/12/0737 for the 'Railway Quay' development in due course.
So lets all give Newhaven the 'Shot in the Arm' it so badly needs and get behind this application. After all, it will not only get another 'in town' supermarket, which must be a good thing for customer choice, unlike the 'out of town' ASDA development, but will 'tidy up' the Railway Quay area, the harbour and ferry terminal as well as restoring the old quayside buildings. It will even give visitors who get off the ferry somewhere to stop, spend a little time and more importantly, spend a little money. All of which will be of direct benefit to Newhaven.
The other major direct benefit to Newhaven will be the creation of even more sustainable local employment.
Such a scheme would also directly boost the ailing town centre, as visitors to this development would then be encouraged to ''cross the bridge' and go into town, rather than 'passing Newhaven by' as they do at present.
So well done Arrowcroft.
Geoff King
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MAIN POINTS
Arrowcroft's decision to resubmit its planning application throws up some very interesting points.
Firstly, why have they done it? They are still within the time limit to submit an appeal to the planning inspectorate if they believe that the previous decision was incorrect in planning terms. Since they haven't done that, one might conclude that they don't think they would win an appeal. So is it some spoiling tactic? And if so, why?
Second, what will LDC do about it? Resubmitting an application, which I am led to believe is identical to the previously rejected one, should attract an immediate refusal. As I understand it, there has to be a material change to the application for it even to be considered.
Third, to make life interesting, Arrowcroft suggest that there is a legal precedent which means that their application has to be reconsidered again. Herein lies the trickiest part. This legal precedent would also seem to rely on the fact that the resubmitted application has a material change and that the previous granted application was never completed. This one has LDC talking to its lawyers to make sure that this is what it means, and if this resubmission should have any bearing on is grant of permission to the Eastside/ASDA application.
Fourth: Lets suppose that LDC are persuaded that the Arrowcroft permission should be reconsidered on its own merits. It would still have to overcome the reasons for the previous refusal, plus an additional one that there is probably no room for a fourth supermarket in the town. Even if those were to be reconsidered by the committee and the committee were minded to pass it, the chances of it getting built before ASDA are probably nil. The probability that a supermarket operator would be interested in the site, given past experience and Tesco's publicly stated position that it is not going to be opening major new supermarkets, is also veering towards nil.
So why is Norman Baker backing something that is almost certainly on a loser? Not like Norman to get it so wrong, you may well think. The answer is that it's not the supermarket itself that Norman is backing, (in my opinion), but the things that come with it. The regeneration of the Marine Workshops, the improvement to the Port Entrance and the quayside. Those are the things that need doing and would be a huge benefit to the future of Newhaven.
Yes, we all understand that Newhaven has been dying on its feet for years. Particularly the port. While I am more than prepared to meet NPP head on about the beach, it is nonetheless true and to their credit that they have taken on the port in a dire state and kept it going. In every sense, bar the supermarket itself, I would support Arrowcroft's plans. The planning committee's decision was that a supermarket in that location does not work. However, while Norman regards the planning decision taken in May as bizarre, any surgeon will tell you that doing something to the patient which will kill them doesn't save their life. Killing the town centre in order to save the port is as bizarre as it gets and LDC didn't do it.
Do you want them to have another go?
Cllr Rod Main
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LOOK. LISTEN. LEARN.
Now that sounds like a plan! Despite the unwillingness of LDC to listen to the people of Newhaven.
Look listen and learn KEH, (re:waterpark). Talk to the people and take onboard their ideas.
I think the people of this town know what it needs - not Councillor Page ......et al.
Having said all that, I guess it might not happen...
Gary Middleton
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STEVE'S VIEW
I was pleased to see the news about Arrowcroft's proposals being re-submitted to the District Council at Eastside. I was very angry at the way the County Council's Highways Officer belligerently attacked the Arrowcroft proposals at the planning meeting at Tideway in May.The new plans confirm that the original plans will not unduly affect the existing traffic flow in the area and the mitigating measures proposed of traffic signalling, etc., will be sufficient to allow the scheme to work.
I felt that committee meeting was compromised by the comments over the highways issues and the members were unable to make a decision based on the merits of the two applications before them. The ASDA scheme was given the provisional green light on the night, save for increasing their offer on playspace for the community and latterly, the decision being called in by the government.
I was contacted by several irate residents following the committee's decision, which was only narrowly passed, concerned at the future of the East Quay and the eyesore created by years of neglect. Sometimes, you have to accept that these things happen, but I am now hopeful that the District Council will be able to look again at the two schemes together, without the unmerited interference of the County Council.
Both applications offer benefits to the community and that cannot be ignored, but the chance to look at them both with the transparency and fairness we are now offered, is an important one for the local community. A community that has most to win and equally, the most to lose from the ultimate decision that is made. To the Planning Committee, it doesn't matter whether it's an ASDA, Tesco, or even, (however unlikely), Harrods. They are both supermarket applications, attached to additional development schemes, offering different things. The two applications can now be determined on those issues alone, without having the waters muddied by irrelevant diversions and stage-managed performances for the benefit and influence of the Committee.
The decision may go the same way, it may not, but at least it will be viewed on equal terms.
Councillor Steve Saunders
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NORMAN'S VIEW
I welcome the decision taken by Arrowcroft to resubmit this application. This is the right answer for Newhaven town centre and for the port. The District Council's planning committee now has a second opportunity to make the right decision for Newhaven following their bizarre and inexplicable decision to give the green light to a different supermarket on totally the wrong piece of land while turning this one down.
On a related matter, information has recently been provided to me to suggest that that previous decision may be unsafe in planning law and I have now written to Bob Neill, the Planning Minister, to make him aware of this new information and to ask him to prevent the District Council issuing final permission for the alternative site until the information I have been given has been independently investigated.
Norman Baker MP
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