Y11/0537/SH. Sometimes you lose.

At last nights Shepway Development Control meeting last night, I presented the views of Sandgate Parish Council against application Y11/0537/SH, described as:

• Erection of two, four storey blocks comprising ten flats in total, following excavation of the site together with parking below and associated engineering works. Land Adjoining West Wedge And Part Of Garden Of Hawkhurst. Sandgate Esplanade, Sandgate, Kent

As the Development Control meeting then went on to unanimously support the resolution of Cllr Tilson to support the application, my speech clearly didn't really have the desired effect. However, for posterity, this is what I said:

Thank you Chairman and good evening Councillors.

Sandgate Parish Council's objection to this application is as written in the report. I'd like to expand on some of those points.

The report rightly says the site is within a Landslip area. Nearby in The Crescent three houses and their rear gardens are currently pushing over the retaining wall beneath them - its moving almost visibly.

A development of this size will require a huge excavation and the removal of many tonnes of earth - the details of the previous application made that clear. Sandgate Escarpment is already slipping. This development could make it move quicker for properties above it and to each side causing serious damage.

Getting piling equipment onto the site may need access via Prospect Road and West Lawn Gardens. I'd like to read you an email from a local resident:

"Prospect Road and West Lawn Gardens are totally unsuitable for the access of heavy lorries and other equipment which will be used in the construction of the above development. Several years ago we experienced terrible problems with work being carried out at Hawkhurst involving the use of heavy transport which caused damage to an unadopted road and damage to neighbouring properties."

That's the view of Prospect Road resident and Parish Councillor Nina Bliss.

Next, the report accepts that the development would require the moving of the existing Esplanade bus stop which is currently in a good location. However, given the constraints of the Esplanade, we can't see where it could be moved to without being a long way from the existing stop or the stop the other side of the road.

The previous application Y09/0637/SH was for the erection of a five storey block of 14 flats with associated parking.

This application is for four less flats, but it is for a parking level, lower ground floor, and 2, 3 storey buildings on top. That's a five storey block - as rejected previously.

It's true that the proposed building is not taller than existing buildings in the area. However as the officers report says at 8.17: "The proposed buildings would have a greater depth and penetration into the site than much of the surrounding building typology." Their scale is different.

The design is a glass fronted, metal framed, flat roofed modernist design which is out of keeping with other buildings in that part of Sandgate's Conservation area.

There is a place for new and contemporary design - even in Sandgate. However our view is that the proposed position on the Esplanade is not amongst them. As the report says at 8.15: "The proposed development has a strongly contemporary style, and does not attempt a pastiche of the surrounding development." To be honest, it doesn't even nod at it.

Planning Policy BE4 requires the height, scale, form and materials of any new development to respect the character of Conservation areas. This proposal does not meet that policy in terms of the scale, the form or the materials.

I ask you, on behalf of Sandgate Parish Council and local residents, to reject this application.