HASTINGS BOROUGH COUNCIL PLANNING REF:  HS/FA/10/00207
[Renovation ref is HS/LB/10/00206]
The Hastings & St Leonards Observer has agreed to do a story on the widespread opposition to the proposed redevelopment of All Souls Convent, Magdalen Road St Leonards, with a housing estate and parking spaces for many hundreds of people.
 
Reasons to oppose this blatantly commercial property deal include:

• that the playing fields are playing fields [though Hastings Council say otherwise]
• that English Heritage's dubious practices are in breach of proper procedure about enabling development
• that a proposed density of 66 dwellings per hectare is an insult to the area
•  that a Conservation Area should be conserved
• that Central St Leonards ward is already very densely populated
• that government policy last month abolished the grubby practice of 'garden grabbing'
• that all the extra traffic will go onto Magdalen Road which already is busy from emergency vehicles, and the school and the church there 
•  that more blocks of flats are not necessary in this town (and why does the Coucil have an Empty Homes Strategy?)
•  that the destruction of the view from the Museum and Art Gallery in Lower Bohemia Rd is not a good idea for the extra Jerwood visitors:  goodbye to Hastings as a 'destination resort'
• that alternative uses for the Convent complex have not been properly explored
• that the great architect A W N Pugin is turning in his grave at the outrages being perpetrated in his name
• that these proposals do profound damage to the Borough's sense of place
• that the people of Hastings & St Leonards deserve better that the architectural tat on offer.

 
If any of the above matter to you, or you have reasons of your own,
please come along to the photo-opportunity of protest.   Tell others too, and bring
visual material if you are minded to.

The Oval, Lower Bohemia Road (the Eastern side of the Convent site)
 Friday 30 July 2010
 at 1:00 p.m. for 1:05 p.m.

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