Green MP Siân Berry said that she was disappointed that Royal Mail had been granted planning permission to build a distribution depot on the site of disused farm buildings on the edge of Brighton.
The new MP for Brighton Pavilion submitted objections to the plans for Patcham Court Farm, in Vale Avenue, both before and after her election on Thursday 4 July.
But today (Wednesday 4 September) Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee voted seven to two in favour of the scheme, with one abstention, after three hours of questions and debate.
Residents protested outside Hove Town Hall before the meeting and filled the public gallery, applauding comments they agreed with and calling out “shame on you” when the application was approved.
Ms Berry said: “I know many of my constituents will be disappointed with the Royal Mail planning decision today, particularly in north Brighton.
“Having fought so hard and to have felt silenced in recent parts of the process, it has left many residents with questions about the fairness of the planning system.
“With requests for more time to scrutinise documents refused by the council, and with many concerns seemingly ignored or not adequately reflected in documents, I share their frustration.
“When even Southern Water don’t seem wholly confident about Royal Mail’s plans, saying they need more ‘conversations’ about mitigations, alarm bells should be ringing.
“The conditions imposed alone do not make this a safe development.
“I will do what I can to support my constituents with the next steps, to ensure that conditions are not breached and that further mitigations are considered wherever possible.”
There were 1,179 individual objections to the application, with representations from Brighton and Hove Wildlife Forum, the Brighton Society, Patcham and Hollingbury Conservation Association and the Patcham Local History Group.
At the meeting, councillors were told that the site was in a “source protection zone 1” – officially classed as the most vulnerable to pollution – for Southern Water’s public water supply. There were “adits” – or horizontal drains – within 150 metres of the site.
The council agreed with Southern Water that one of the planning conditions should be that “no below-ground construction work” could take place from September to April.
How was the vote ?
Read the 3rd paragraph.
The former Green MP supported the ‘Travellers’ site at Horsdean at a ridiculous cost. this being behind the a27 next to the proposed development and the pollution argument failed then.
This site has been vacant since the a27 bypass was built in 1991 – a ridiculous amount of time for the council not to capitalize on a very sizeable plot with the best road transport links in the county i.e at the intersection of the a27/a23
The best location for RM and takes all that pollution away from North Road.
I don’t think the nimby’s will make any difference at all.
The council will hold a public consultation and all the locals will object and the council will totally ignore and just steamroller it through like they did with the ‘travellers’ camp
Of course she’s disappointed.
Classic example of improved services and actual jobs trumping Green Party whinging.
The vast majority of local residents were against the proposal, if she backed it you would just say she wasn’t listening to them! Classic anti Green rubbish!
Exactly Simon – it’s a “classic example” of someone just trying to have a pop.
A lot of residents in Patcham aren’t necessarily Green voters, but to be fair to her, she has been visible and active on this. She’s read the documents, unlike many of the councillors on the planning committee it seems.
But there are no new jobs – it’s moving workers from 2 existing sorting offices to a new bigger sorting office. This application has never been about job creation. You’ve clearly not read any of the planning documents.
Don’t worry Sian – you can always go back to you flat in Camden
Pleased that coming sense trumps Nimbys.
When your drinking water has e-coli in it, perhaps you’ll realise it was a dangerous development.
How will this cause e-coli in drinking water any more than any other development, or indeed from the current buildings and resident activities?
Just pure scaremongering from Nimbys desperate to find any excuse they can to prevent this development and the possible impact on the value of their mansions!
Any more than two major A roads, dense housing, and extensive farmland?
Maybe read a book about where e-coli come from…
Do not mention common sense, whence it’s about commities and councils in the same breath, they have one thing in common? They have no clue, to why theres a protest,as soon as they think people are up in arms over something!! It’s there belief theres an arterial motive?? Instead of factual basic information as to why it should be rejected,? I would bet my bottom dollar Nobody on that committee has any planning knowledge, or knows about LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE, as well as the local people themselves, whom are protesting for the right reasons. I know from first hand experience ,of there incompetence, needed a shower to be installed down stairs, it’s been measured, and costed by me,ex ,builder,and electrical mechanical engineer, ex,lift engineer, so I know dimensions, drew up plans,they came out,and said,was I intending to MOVE,!! INFERING,IT WAS TO GET A BETTER PRICE FOR THE HOUSE,NO I SAID,,THEN THE NEXT THING WAS REJECTION FOR THE GRANT BECAUSE THEY SAID IT WAS,NT WIDE ENOUGH FOR A WHEELCHAIR, ?? THEN THEY WANTED £10,000 for something costed below £5,000
Councillors on the planning (and licensing) committee receive special training on assessing applications and the planning law they have to follow in making their assessments and decisions.
If elected local councillors didn’t make these decisions then who would you suggest did make them?
Quite, plus planning and licensing committees are bound by actual current law and not run along Party Political lines.
Great that the mediocre councillor and assembly member from London, who spent all her time opposing much needed house building in London has now turned her nimby attention to Brighton.
This is the way the Greens are going now. Opposing any kind of infrastructure or change. They aren’t environmentalists, they are conservatives wanting to stop any development that doesn’t look “nice”. Green voters must be very proud their other Tory-lite MP is currently trying to stop electricity pylons being built. Pylons to carry renewable electricity from off-shore wind farms.
You sound just like an embittered Tom Gray, the failed Labour candidate who stood against her LOL. He lives in Hove, imagine in the posh Palmeira bit. You need to relax a bit – we can all see post election who the wannabe Tories are, and that’s Keir and his pals pushing through this weird Labour austerity agenda after promising “change”.
You sound like one of those smug Greens who like political purity over actual decision making.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the RM planning application, in the same way there was nothing wrong with all the housing Sian objected to as an AM in London.
Can’t say as I ever saw Tom Gray criticise Sian and the Greens. I would dearly love Sian to explain the Greens policies, because the “co leader” in Bristol couldn’t.
Haha – this is a joke right “Can’t say as I ever saw Tom Gray criticise Sian and the Greens”? Tom’s* whole campaign was slagging off Greens at every opportunity and making barbed comments.
TBF he* did also put a lot of effort into trying to get endorsements from celebrity friends to say what a great guy he* is. So I take it back, his* campaign wasn’t just slagging off greens – there was quite a bit of “great guy” backslapping going also going on between fellow-men-of-a-similar-age-turned -campaigners.
* you / your? 😉
The development is not a risk to drinking water. The risks to drinking water are the 3x existing petrol stations with 100s of tonnes of fuel in below ground tanks. But no protests there ? The natural groundwater flooding is a natural issue, and separate from rainfall drainage. The lack of pollution control for road drainage on A27 is an ongoing concern though.And Slurry spreading on farmland to north is always an issue. No protestors out there thought? But the protest group is happy to misrepresent enviro risks in ways to suit it’s own objectives, to oppose a building being built. This protest is a selfish misrepresentation of enviro issues and false narratives for the protest groups own objectives. Yes cars and traffic may be concern though.
So the green MP is against a massive delivery company building facilities which means it will use less power and will be able to switch it’s entire fleet to electric, because of some NIMBYs. LOL literally nothing green about the green party, please change your name to the red party, way more accurate…
You aren’t seriously saying Royal Mail are a reputable company are you? Their former CEO was called back to a parliamentary committee last year for allegedly telling porkies to them the first time he met with MPs and gave answers to whether posties are being illegally tracked by bosses on their rounds, and whether they are lying about prioritising parcel deliveries.
RM may not have had a scandal the scale of the post office, but they’ve been caught out for misrepresenting facts before (something most of us call lying), and their application in Patcham is riddled with things that don’t add up and seem to misrepresent – council officers cast doubt on lots of issues at one point, including whether RM would in fact meet what they say about and electric fleet of vehicles.
So many people commenting on this thread who clearly have not looked at any of the planning documents and seen the gaping holes in it all…
Yes, unfortunately the shameless lying and scaremongering is from protest group continually and falsely ‘using’ the environment. There is no additional risk to drinking water from this building. Especially compared to the existing activities, main roads, parking… the existing petrol stations with their below ground fuel storage tanks sitting close to the water table during winter, and the slurry spreading used as informal farm waste disposal on farmland to north…Mainly the protest group needs to stop falsely using the environment to support what’s a NIMBY objection about traffic. Outside of patcham environmental issues are quite important, well so I’ve heard. So it’s also important the environment is not used falsely, for baseless blame-mongering or scaremongering. To suit personal objectives.
The problem with the Green approach is always that rather than find a solution to make things work and overcome the concerns, they just oppose everything. Then they fail, and just walk away.
If they just worked with development, they might make a difference, but the problem is that they choose to make no positive contribution.
King Canute showed how the world works, but The Greens weren’t listening.
Thank you Sian Berry for standing up for your constituents, and thank you all the people who protested. Sian Berry has gone up in my estimation.