We are hiring a planning consultant to maximise our chances of blocking destructive building development around the Dyke pub
by Highcroft Villas Community Group in Brighton, England, United Kingdom
Every pound you pledge above our target will go towards fighting these development proposals. Whether that's more time for our consultant or helping to organise the community to attend any planning hearings. Many thanks in advance!
Please help us to protect our local neighbourhood and the newly launched Dyke Alehouse and Kitchen.
A major new development proposed around the Dyke pub severely threatens the quality of life of those of us who live in this densely packed corner of Brighton, and puts the brand new pub at risk.
We are local residents and supporters of the Save the Dyke campaign. We want to hire an expert planning consultant to help us block these plans.
WHAT IS PROPOSED IN THE PLANNING APPLICATIONS?
The building’s owners have submitted three planning applications for the property, including a two-storey house in the garden, and a two-storey extension at the back of the pub creating three new flats .
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PROPOSALS?
These new developments create four new dwellings in an already congested and dense urban area. Pressure on parking, and rubbish disposal - both already severely stretched - would be intolerable.
Construction of the developments would mean years of extra traffic, disruption and noise for hundreds of local residents. Access to Old Mill Mews is already congested - construction traffic would block dangerously block access for residents and emergency services.
The plans also clearly jeopardise the future of the pub before it’s even up and running. Years of noisy construction work will not be good for business, and it opens the possibility that proposed new residents of the pub extension will try and close the pub. This is a common strategy that property developers have used in other cases in East Sussex and the UK more broadly to close down pubs – in stages. The proposed extension and new house are not in keeping with a beautiful heritage building and community asset.
This objection isn’t to more housing. We just want to maintain an important community asset that provides a much needed gathering space in this little corner of Brighton. The hope is that the new Dyke Pub will thrive and, in time, take back the whole ground floor and garden that it once maintained.
WHAT WILL WE SPEND THE MONEY ON?
Expert planning consultant Dale Ingram (of Planning for Pubs) already did essential work for the Save the Dyke campaign, helping make the Dyke pub an Asset of Community Value in 2016. Now she's agreed to help us again to research and prepare a detailed objection to these plans to submit to the council.