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The
Lymington Society
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By email only : news@advertiserandtimes.co.uk
22nd
February 2011
Dear
Sir
Your
recent correspondence on the Redrow site and the planning application by Redrow
prompts me to put the current status of the development of the site into perspective.
Firstly
Redrow are to be complimented for the significant effort they have made after
their purchase of the site with its planning permission obtained by Paxton's,
to bring to the site a new concept and layout orienting the site towards the
station and the town for pedestrian access. Unfortunately however Redrow are
left with a legacy of the planning history of the past.
The
Lymington Society was originally involved in a supplemental planning guidance
when the site came up for development. Unfortunately very few of the proposals
in that supplemental planning guidance were incorporated into the eventual
permission, which was given by the then planning councillors, leading to an
excessively dense development of 300 units. This was driven by the then diktat
of the Office of Deputy Prime Minister of the time to build densely in urban
areas.
The
site therefore had planning permission for a dense development and was sold
to Redrow on that basis. Redrow tried to improve the design within those constraints
and went to a leading national, if not international architect, to obtain
the design suitable for coastal location. Unfortunately one has to say that
that first design was not suitable for this coastal location.
To
their credit Redrow held a public planning consultation well attended by local
people who unanimously gave their view that the Cubist pavilions which formed
the buildings themselves were not appropriate to Lymington or the
In
an effort to remedy the situation Redrow have amended their first design concept
with the addition of pitched roofs, based on, possibly, other coastal architecture,
again not in keeping with this location. The result as ever in these situations
is a compromise, and a design which has the appearance of being designed by
committee resulting in that unfortunate of animals, a camel.
The
current design is available to be seen on the planning commission website
under Application Number 96940. Its features are the overall height and mass
and the contrast of the design of the buildings to anything which we have
elsewhere in Lymington. It is sad to have say so
but this is still the wrong design in the wrong place.
The
Lymington Society have put in a formal objection whilst acknowledging the
efforts to which Redrow's have gone to achieve what
they perceived as the need of the local population, but they have approached
the current design from the legacy of the grant of a 300 unit planning permission
which should never have been approved in the first place and which with the
changes in government density requirements, the raising of flood levels and
the impact of local distinctiveness is now well out of date.
I
believe that the objections to this design will be such that it will be refused
and any appeal would be unsuccessful. Redrow may consider the previous application
permission which is potentially preserved, but requires additional permission
to increase its height for flood prevention purposes. That will again make
the site and the mass of buildings and acceptably prominent.
The only answer to this site is to take a deep breath
and to go back to the drawing board. I hope that Redrow or any other developer
will continue to do that with the input from local people who have throughout
this saga proposed a much less dense basis for such a development.
Yours sincerely
Clive Sutton
Chairman