Planning to Destroy Hayling’s Character

- Mon 19th Feb 2007

In contrast to last month in which I reported some decisions that would adversely affect Hayling being deferred for the time being at least, this month I have to report some imminent decisions that could materially alter aspects of life on Hayling and lead to a considerable reduction in the long-term quality of life on the Island if these examples became the norm.

As people will know, the Dilkusha site on the sea-front has been the subject of much discussion and change of options for some time. McCarthy and Stone are the current site incumbents and have put on public view their proposed development for some 33 flats for the very elderly, or so the claim is being made.

People who have seen the plans are aghast at, in their view, the poor quality of these plans. These are for a monolithic block with little character and no relationship to what is already round about. There is totally inadequate parking, no doubt in the name of political correctness for either residents (they will be too old to drive) or for visitors or indeed, staff. This scheme appears to have no recognition of the long-term needs of the area or of the fact that virtually all the existing developments of a similar nature have unsold units.

Normally M & S do reasonably good, if expensive, developments but this does not appear to be one of them.

40 St Catherine’s Road is exciting great anger among the immediate local residents as the plan here, having been refused and now going to appeal, will squeeze four houses into a plot on which there is currently one. The plan involves the felling of a number of mature and unusual trees that currently have protection orders upon them.

There is a view that these people live in a nice area and why should not they feel the pain of uncontrolled and unthinking government like everyone else. The trouble with this view is that boundaries have to be drawn somewhere and we do not want the whole country brought down to the lowest common denominator. Many people feel that this is happening  in just about every area of Government

A third development is for Broad Oak in Copse Lane that is the basis of a request for a change of use to a care home. Very laudable you might think until you are told that those in care are disturbed teenagers from London who are to be dumped in an essentially rural area with no access to any services that they would recognise or understand..

ESSO has applied to re-develop its filling station in North Hayling and this has prompted some concern about the exact plans being presented. Two years ago an application was put to the People’s Millions TV show to place a pit stop behind the garage to service visitors to the Billy Trail. The proposal was to provide toilets, changing facilities for sailing and wind-surfing activities and possibly a café of some sort.

It has been suggested that ESSO should be contacted about this to see if could provide such community services as part of the development. This will be investigated. Similarly Sinah has been approached about including nature watching facilities in its possible new development near the Kench.

West Lane Junction

Action is finally being proposed to prohibit right turns into the Northern end of West Lane during the weekday evening rush hour. Simple timing studies show that if traffic flows smoothly down the Island and one is going to West Town that point can be reached in less time than would be the case if one joined the queue at the northern end of the lane  and then came down it. By banning such turns everyone will get home earlier.

Whether this plan will be implemented remains to be seen.

HIRA Committee

Because of all the activity on the Island in trying to get to grips with Community issues and problems (Community Board, Market Town Initiative, Residents’ Association and the myriad of charitable groups on the Island), there is growing appreciation of the fact that, if we get together, we can influence the future in beneficial ways. In the case of HIRA this is exemplified by the fact that we had 15 people at our last committee meeting and the people involved are beginning to make significant impacts.

Parking

At our meeting we also had a long discussion about parking charges. It was suggested that we could put in any coin, say from 10p upwards and get an appropriate amount of time, or that clocks could be kept 10 minutes fast to allow ten minutes grace or 10 minutes free parking. Every suggestion was countered by the council view that ‘that would lose us revenue’. It became clear that the whole purpose of the parking charges is not to cover the costs of providing parking but to raise as much money as possible, i.e. a tax, and that no idea that would helpful to residents could possibly be considered.

Holm Oaks

The Council, as agents for English Nature, is continuing with its ludicrous campaign to eliminate the holm oak from the Sinah Common SSSI. It may be that they are not ‘native’ but neither were the rabbits that gave rise to the particular environment being ‘preserved’. The landscape is being ruined and all height variation in the vegetation is being lost. The area is becoming completely characterless and it is hard to understand the basis of any claim that the holm oaks should be exterminated as the total area they shade is negligible. Any excessive spread of the species could be easily controlled but what we are losing now is irreplaceable.

HIRA February Meeting

For reasons that have been explained the HIRA January quarterly Open Meeting was held on February 9th in the Station Theatre. This was to present the findings of the Market Town Healthcheck studies carried out over the last year and to show Robin Walton’s ‘a Postcard from Hayling Island’ DVD. The evening included a ‘champagne’ reception (the Champagne producers might disagree) and the whole event went very well and people were most impressed by the view of ‘Hayling in the summer’ that was shown. This DVD should be on sale at Easter at a RRP of £2.99 from Hayling outlets..

April Open Meeting

This is on the topic of ‘Threats to Island Services’ and will include matters such as Post Office closures, inadequate policing, centralisation of services etc. If you would like to raise any particular topic please inform one of the people noted below:

Chairman: Paul Fisher 9246-1412

Notice Board: Lois Neale 9246-9339

Reporter: Tony Higham 9246-4723.

Tony Higham

By forum user, HIbot