How should we campaign in the future? Our Society is proud to stand Stronger Together, joining forces with thirteen others in Brighton and Hove …
Brighton Society, AGHAST, Kemp Town Society, Regency Squares Community, Amex Area Neighbourhood Action Forum, Regency Society, Montpelier & Clifton Hill Association, Brighton & Hove Heritage Commission, North Laine Community Association, Rottingdean Heritage, Marine Gate Holdings Ltd, Southdown Rise Residents Association, West Hill Community Association and The Kingscliffe Society
The Brighton Gasworks Coalition campaign involves: local and national press, orchestrated Twitter broadcasts and direct communications – all before developer’s drawings became cemented into a Planning Application. We have issued a Joint Open Statement asking developer St William, Berkeley Group and the Brighton and Hove City Council to go back to the drawing board on the Brighton East Gasworks development [download below].
Each society was encouraged to submit its individual response to the developer’s second public consultation [RSC’s response download below].
While the groups welcome the use of this brownfield site for a housing development, we are united in our objection to the St William proposal summarised as follows:
- The huge over-development of the site includes proposals for 553 dwellings when the Council asked for just 85; it poses a potential threat to the physical and mental wellbeing of residents living in and around the development and ignores the desperate need for affordable housing by proposing zero.
- The proposal of a high-rise, high-density development will require extensive excavations of potentially heavily contaminated soil. The developer says airborne deposits will spread over a kilometre, including ten schools and the Royal Sussex County Hospital.
- The Council’s move to create a new Tall Buildings Area specifically for the Gasworks site will set a terrible precedent where policy could be overturned to fit with any developer’s needs over the city or community needs.
Mike Davies from the Regency Squares Community says,
“For too long the people of Brighton and Hove have had big developer and big finance dictate the built shape of our city. Today our societies join together in one voice for the community.”
Jeremy Mustoe, Chairperson of the Brighton Society says,
“The Gasworks proposals desecrate the city’s landscape and urban heritage and fail to integrate socially or visually with the local community. The decontamination proposals are unconvincing.”
A spokesperson from AGHAST says,
“We support the development of the gasworks site provided it carries no risk of human or environmental harm. We have grave concerns about the St William development on both accounts.”
Rethink The Gasworks. Brighton Deserves Better.