The Round Hill Society

Carelet Round Six

On 9th June 2010, members of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee refused Carelet’s application (no BH2010/00083) to build 6 three-storey houses on the greenfield site (to rear of 67-81 Princes Road).

The grounds for refusal were :
1) Failure to meet travel demand (parking)
2) Over development
3) Detrimental Impact on future occupiers due to the proximity to the Hollingdean depot.

In the likely event of an appeal by the developer, residents need to defend these three grounds in their representations to The Appeal Inspector who could overturn The Council's decision.

Adverse effect of 3 storeys on longer views
It does no harm at all to voice other concerns. This page relates to the effects that three-storey development on the application site would have on "longer views" into The Round Hill Conservation area.

It should be noted that the planning inspector who dismissed the previous proposal by Carelet involving three-storey development (2 x two-storey and 6 x three-storey) expressed his own concerns about damage to the green setting and period-look of The Round Hill Conservation area.

New 2010 proposal for 6 houses (3 storeys) to be located on a greenfield site currently functioning as a buffer zone between the built area of Round Hill and a noisy, smelling and polluting, unlandscaped Waste Transfer Station:

Threat to longer views of Round Hill from the north and east
Contrary to inaccurate geographical bearings in Carelet's Design Statement ( see section 4.10), the visual amenity offered by Round Hill's period-architecture and green NE boundary can be enjoyed from several vantage points in (1) Hollingdean and from within & around (2) Woodvale/Tenantry Down/upper Bear Rd.
Almost the whole of Carelet's greenfield site can be seen from Hollingdean's Davey Drive, unobstructed by The MRF/WTS:

Council's Open Spaces Policy fails to meet the Government's Planning Policy Guidance PPG17 in relation to private plots, which account for most of our visual amenity
Over five years ago, in appraising the Second Draft Deposit of The Brighton and Hove Local Plan, the Government Inspectorate warned Brighton and Hove City Council that its Open Spaces Policy would remain defective unless qualitative assessment of the city's open spaces was performed.

No Neighbourhood-Specific Open Space Assessment

Since then, we have had at least three Open Spaces Studies, which by pooling all the city's publicly owned parks & recs and claiming to be CITY-WIDE, have failed to have any relevance at all to neighbourhoods like Round Hill where nearly all our valued open spaces are privately owned &/or on inaccessible (e.g. hillside!) locations. The Government's Planning Policy Guidance (PPG17) makes it quite clear that open space needs should be assessed on a NEIGHBOURHOOD SPECIFIC basis and should be LOCALLY-DERIVED.

Residents have been allowed no role in Open Space Assessment when greenfield sites have been threatened

PPG17 Scroll to Paragraph 10 and Diagram 1 could not make it clearer that there should be SPECIFIC OPEN SPACE ASSESSMENTS in the context of planning applications potentially involving the loss of open spaces, whoever owns them. The guiding criterion for assessment is the value of these spaces to the local community in the neighbourhoods where they are located.

Carelet has now made six development applications to build on the greenfield site to the rear of 67-81 Princes Road Brighton. In relation to each of these proposals, the Council has ignored PPG17 Diagram 1 and Scroll to Paragraph 10. PPG17-compliant open space assessment would necessarily involve the participation of local residents.

Ecologist's biodiversity report used each time to substitute for Open Space Assessment, denying the community of any role in defining the value of open spaces to them

The Council has confused Open Space Assessment with the far narrower remit of its ecologist, using a biodiversity report provided by one of its own employees (i.e. the ecologist) to substitute for any open space assessment at all.

Planning Inspectorate eager to hold our Council to its practice rather than its policies

Meanwhile, the Government's Planning Inspectorate (which handled 3 of Carelet's Appeals against refusal) stood back from Brighton and Hove City Council's stated policies on Open Space (e.g. QD20) and greenfield sites (QD28). Rather than holding the Council to these policies, the Planning Inspectorate played a waiting game.

A most unfortunate precedent is now being used to determine the results of Appeals

on 22nd July 2009 Brighton and Hove City Council approved Carelet's controversial application to build four 2-storey houses opposite our city's main Waste Transfer Station on a greenfield site adjacent to the Coastways railway corridor.

This planning decision gave The Government's Planning Inspectorate the clearest signal to date that a Council pretending to be interested in urban biospheres in fact had quite different practices, incompatible with saved Local Plan policies: (QD28) protecting greenfield sites and (QD20) protection of open spaces valued by local residents.

Our Council is now being held to practices which are at odds with its policies

The Planning Inspectorate used the Carelet decision to hold the Council to consistency in overturning refusal of greenfield development on land to the rear of Springfield Road - a visual amenity which may not be enjoyed much longer by users of London Road Station who have also never been invited to participate in PPG17-compliant Open Assessment.

Both the Government's eagerness for Councils to water down their policies to make life easier for developers and our Council's weakness have given Carelet new hope. Not content with permission to build four 2-storey houses on difficult terrain, which could only be made viable by cramming, they want more.

Carelet's 2010 Application
Application No: BH2010/00083
Applicant: Carelet Ltd
Site/Property: Land to the rear of 67-81 Princes Road Brighton
Description: Full Planning - Construction of 6 no. three-storey, two bedroom terraced houses with pitched roofs and solar panels. Provision of private and communal gardens, waste and refuse facilities, and erection of a street level lift gate-house with cycle store.

Application Form

Correspondence agent supporting letter

Drawings existing site plan, site survey & block plan as proposed

Drawing(s) existing sections a01 & a04, & existing street & gate house elevation

Drawing(s) existing rear elevation & proposed gate house

Drawing(s) proposed lower ground floor plan

Drawing(s) proposed ground floor plan

Drawing(s) proposed roof plan

Drawing(s) proposed north east elevation & long site section

Drawing(s) proposed south west elevation & sections a03 & a04

Drawing(s) proposed north west elevation

Drawing(s) proposed south east elevation & section a02

Drawing(s) proposed roof plan

Supporting Document(s) design & access statement part 01

Supporting Document(s) design & access statement part 02

Supporting Document(s) design & access statement part 03

Supporting Document(s) design & access statement part 04

Supporting Document(s) heritage statement

Supporting Document(s) sustainability checklist

Supporting Document(s) the lifetime homes standards checklist

Supporting Document(s) climate change & energy checklist

Supporting Document(s) biodiversity checklist

Supporting Document(s) waste minimisation statement

Supporting Document(s) tree report part 01

Supporting Document(s) tree report part 02

Supporting Document(s) technical report part 01

Supporting Document(s) technical report part 02

Supporting Document(s) technical report part 03

Supporting Document(s) technical report part 04

Supporting Document(s) technical report part 05

Supporting Document(s) combined factual & interpretative report on the site investigation part 01

Supporting Document(s) combined factual & interpretative report on the site investigation part 02

Supporting Document(s)combined factual & interpretative report on the site investigation part 03

Supporting Document(s) combined factual & interpretative report on the site investigation part 04

Supporting Document(s) noise assessment part 01

Supporting Document(s) noise assessment part 02

Supporting Document(s) noise assessment part 03

Supporting Document(s) noise assessment part 04

Supporting Document(s) noise assessment part 05

Supporting Document(s) solar domestic hot water system part 01

Supporting Document(s) solar domestic hot water system part 02

Commenting on planning applications
Your arguments should be structured around one or more of the issues which can be taken into account.

What issues can be taken into account?

The Council can only take certain matters into account when considering your comments on a planning application.

Issues that can be taken into account:

[A] The proposal complies with the Council’s planning policies
[B] A proposed use is suitable for the area
[C] The appearance and size of a new building is appropriate
[D] External alterations to an existing building are in character
[E] Adjoining residents will suffer overshadowing, overlooking or loss of privacy
[F] There will be any increase in noise and disturbance, e.g. from the
comings and goings of extra traffic
[G] New buildings have satisfactory access for disabled people
[H] New roadways and accesses will be safe for pedestrians and other
road users
[I] A proposed sign is too large or unsightly
[J] The works are in keeping with a listed building

Issues that cannot be taken into account include:
• Loss of view
• Boundary and other disputes between neighbours
• Loss of trade from competing businesses
• Loss of property value
• Private legal covenants

Please note:
The Council will approve an application unless there are good planning reasons to refuse it. Conditions may be attached to a consent to cover points which may be of concern, or the applicant may be prepared to amend the plans to overcome such concerns.


Say "no" to more on-street parking stress
Carelet's parking survey - is flawed, out of date and hidden away in their application so nobody could easily find it.

In the document Supporting Document Technical Report Part 05, drawn up before the decision to have residents' parking in the streets around London Road Station, they are still claiming that there is surplus on-street parking in Ditchling Rise and Springfield Road. They have not revised their claim that there are surplus parking places in Ashdown Road after the approval of a proposal involving 2 new houses and 3 flats.


This page was last updated by Ted on 10-Jun-2010