They did not fight for homes

In last week's letters page county councillor Godfrey Daniel knocked Nick Perry for criticising Hastings council for not pressing for enough social housing related to the local planning process and the link road.

County councillor Daniel will be aware, as a former long-standing chairman of Hastings planning committee that for planning purposes Hastings and Rother were included in the same housing market area for assessing overall housing need. A strategic assessment of the joint area was made in June, 2013.

This identified a need for 13,041 new homes in the period 2011-28, broken down into 6,178 new homes in Rother and 6,863 new homes in Hastings.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This information was fed into both the Hastings and Rother Local Plans which were being undertaken at the time.

Hastings found there wasn’t land enough in Hastings to meet the need, resulting in a shortfall of 1,700 odd homes.

Rother council was asked but refused to help meet that shortfall.

It would have been open to Hastings council to challenge that view in front of the independent inspector at the Rother local plan inquiry.

Hastings chose not to do so.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The inspector might well have decided that more land should be allocated to meet Hastings needs.

We can’t know what the outcome would have been since Hastings didn’t try.

Councillor Daniel suggests that local plans don’t cover the type of housing.

However, as he must also well know, Hastings local plan includes detailed policies seeking a proportion of social housing or payments towards social housing in new residential development.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It might also have been possible for Hastings council to make representations at the Rother plan inquiry seeking nomination rights to a proportion of any new social housing development in that district.

Again, we can’t be sure what might have been agreed.

What seems certain is that Hastings didn’t turn up at the inquiry to put the case.

The largest single area of new housing in Rother is in north-east Bexhill associated with the link road.

One of the promises when the link road was being promoted was that the associated new housing would be for the people of both Bexhill and Hastings.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However, it is very difficult to see how the social housing in the new estates will directly serve needy Hastings residents unless Hastings council had obtained nomination rights to some agreed proportion of them.

As explained above, and as Nick Perry rightly pointed out in the article which Mr Daniel attacks, Hastings Council did not fight when it might have done to try to achieve this.

Chris Lewcock

Secretary

Hastings and Rye 
Liberal Democrats

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

1) Make our website your homepage at www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/ 2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/hastingsobserver

3) Follow us on Twitter @HastingsObs

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

The Hastings Observer - always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.