Planning and Environment Coordinators' report for 2006/7

Gabrielle Villermet

Barry Leigh

Enquiries and consultations

By Gabrielle Villermet and Barry Leigh, NLCA Environment & Planning coordinators

A busy year

As always it has been a busy year for the Planning & Environment coordinators. Despite other commitments we have still managed to look in detail at the many planning applications for North Laine and have represented NLCA on the Conservation Advisory Group (CAG).

Conservation Advisory Group

CAG consists of representatives from conservation areas in Brighton & Hove, the Brighton Society, Regency Society, Royal Institute of British Architects,   Hove Civic Society, Sussex Archaeological Society and representatives from Brighton & Hove City Council. CAG meets every three weeks to look at major applications affecting conservation areas and our comments go to the Brighton & Hove Planning Sub-Committee for their consideration.

A democratic response

NLCA is different from most amenity societies in that our response to plans is democratic, with most of the applications being discussed at our monthly meetings. NLCA is also highly regarded as one of the amenity societies to which others should aspire.

Station site

The Station Site is now well under development and the first phase will be completed soon with the new Sainsbury's store already open. The Bio Regional plans for a zero carbon development next to the Clarendon Centre have been to committee and have been approved. Our concern is still the Beetham Tower, the 42-storey monstrosity proposed to be next to the station. There was a public enquiry at which North Laine was well represented and which was held at the Clarendon Centre. We await the Inspector's report.

New Road

The new road surface for New Road is in the process of completion and looks interesting. Hopefully it will work as planned.

Article 4 directions

Article 4 directions are now showing their influence, with several inappropriate details having been changed.

Parking

Despite meeting with the consultants and objecting strongly to the proposed changes to parking in the centre of Brighton, we now have the new parking system in the process of being implemented. We will see whether our concerns were justified once the system is running.

Licensing

We have now experienced the changes in the way restaurant and pub opening hours are agreed and licensed and with the help of Roy Scam have attended many of the hearings.  We should be very thankful for Roy's help.

Consultations

Both of us have also attended consultations on the new planning structure, which replaces the previous Local Plan. This is the Local Development Framework (LDF) for Brighton & Hove. Representations have been made on the first two major documents: 'Issues & Options' and 'Site Allocations'. We were also involved in consultations about the London Road & Lewes Road Regeneration Strategy study, which will feed into the LDF framework.

Planning applications

Residents are reminded to look out for planning applications that might affect them. These are published weekly in Brighton & Hove Leader, available at City Direct (Bartholomew Square and Hove Town Hall) and are on the Council's website. Detailed plans can now been seen online and this has helped enormously, as it is no longer necessary to go to either Brighton or Hove Town Halls to see all the plans (we now only have to go if the scheme is too large to see online). We hope that others will look at plans which affect them and comment to both Brighton & Hove City Council and to ourselves.

[Previously published in the North Laine Runner, No 185, March/April 2007]