Eastbourne 60 homes plan better - but still has problems

From: Kay WarnerMoy Avenue, Eastbourne
SUS-201019-102721001SUS-201019-102721001
SUS-201019-102721001

Re: Sixty new homes planned for Eastbourne click here to read. This looks a lot better development than those proposed or approved for the other two sites in this small area, the old BT site (72) and ESK(136) but there are problems.

These developments together would add 268 households to this corner of the Roselands district, with the attendant pressure on the local infrastructure.

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Waterworks Road is the main access for the industrial estate for increasing numbers of increasingly large and heavy delivery vehicles and the fleet of refuse vehicles housed in Courtlands Road.

It is on the route for the school run both morning and afternoon and also for children walking and cycling to school and mothers walking their children often accompanied with buggies, scooters and bikes. During the morning rush hour Waterworks is frequently a traffic jam waiting for the lights onto Whitley Road.

Adding the occupants from 60 dwellings to this will just increase the general chaos and pollution.

The two nearest primary schools, Roselands and Stafford, are already full. There is no secondary school nearby, children need to travel out of the area by bus, bike or car.

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Local GP practices are already struggling, both with sheer numbers of patients and also with problems in losing and recruiting staff.

Southern/South East Water have asked local residents to cut down on their use of water due to difficulty maintaining supplies and there have been problems with local flooding and sewerage.

Generally: yes, we need housing, but it’s one thing the government demanding it and another local communities being able to afford it in terms of infrastructure and finance. We were already at a situation where some services had to be cut and the coronavirus situation has exacerbated this.

Sussex Police demand extra precept from residents every year. For most services and much of our infrastructure Eastbourne is reliant on East Sussex County Council, which constantly complains about shortage of cash.

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This doesn’t take account of the amount of building and development by Wealden District Council taking place around Eastbourne’s borders, many of these new households will also look to Eastbourne for services and will be served by some of the same infrastructure and utilities, for example roads and water.

In addition, as Cllrs Smart and Belsey have said, Eastbourne is being forced to do this because we are six hundred homes short of government targets. Even after appeal a reduction to 400 is still too many as because of our location, bounded by both sea and downland, Eastbourne just does not have sufficient vacant land.

I have to agree with Cllrs Smart and Belsey on this one!