Articles about the Conway Street / Ellen Road area: a zone within the Hove Station Neighbourhood Plan designated area. located south of the railway; including the bus garage, industrial buildings, Honeycroft and the Vallance Community Centre.
The major challenge for the Neighbourhood Plan is to create a detailed policy framework and Concept Plan for the phased, integrated redevelopment of the whole of DA6 South, with improved connectivity to redevelopment north of the railway.
We are now in the final stages of preparing your Hove Station Neighbourhood Plan and the regeneration of the Hove Station Area is gathering momentum. Come to Honeycroft and have your say about the latest draft of your community-led plan. Let’s ensure the whole is greater than the sum of its parts! Exhibition and handouts … Read more
Planning approved to ‘kickstart’ the regeneration of the Conway Street area will be a massive step towards the development of the new Hove Station Quarter envisaged in the Neighbourhood Plan.
We are now in the final stages of preparing the Hove Station Neighbourhood Plan and the regeneration of the Hove Station Area is gathering momentum. Come and find out how our community-led plan is responding to development pressures and tying it all together to ensure the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. … Read more
Do you want to improve the public realm in front of the Honeycroft centre, create a pocket park near north of St Barnabas Hall or plot footpaths from Poets Corner to Hove Station? Yes? The Sackville Road – Conway Street Community Hub Group needs you! All these organisations and enterprises operate in a run-down environment, yet they provide … Read more
It is proposed that the Neighbourhood Plan will include a policy for the development of Community Hubs and some sketch schemes to show how these locations can be improved. Several Community Hub Improvement Groups have been meeting to share ideas, develop these schemes and negotiate with developers as they prepare their planning applicationsto agree public benefit improvements. If you’d like to get involved in these neighbourhood improvement schemes, please visit our next Have Your Say Day or send us an email.
Our sixth public Have Your Say Day will take place on Saturday 17th February, at the Honeycroft Centre, Sackville Road (see map below). Come along any time between 11:30 am and 3 pm – to provide feedback on the latest Draft Neighbourhood Plan. including proposed community hubs. There will be a brief talks at lunchtime-ish.
Hove Station Neighbourhood Forum strongly supports this application, subject to the resolution of significant concerns, particularly regarding the provision of public realm improvements.
The Forum strongly supports the very high quality design of the proposed scheme, which will deliver 2000sqm of the Conway Street Strategic Allocation target of 12,000 sqm employment space and 188 of the 200 residential units. Early in our work in 2014 we used some of our small government grant to commission a ‘think piece’, – a desk based project – to provide us with evidence of best practice in the design of high density urban residential environments. This identified the increasing application, in the UK and abroad, of the principles of ‘parcellisation’ to provide diversity and variety of design in contrast to the uniform ‘estate style’ design of much modern housing development
Hence the Forum fully supports the Hove Garden variety of heights, shapes and building materials which provide an imaginative 21st century urban design – an appropriate contrast to the repetitive uniformity of the adjacent mid-20thcentury Clarendon Estate 10 storey blocks which are now being renovated by BHCC. The contrast between the two will contribute to what the emerging NP envisages as the diversity and inclusiveness of the new Hove Station Quarter.
The mix of uses and very high density fully realize the potential of this key site, given its location immediately adjacent to the Station, the frequency of the bus services in Goldstone Villas , the taxi rank and the potential for improving conditions for cyclists.
The complexity and intensity of the design will deliver a high quality urban environment on thekey site in the Conway Street Strategic Allocation, which will trigger the transformation of the long run-down Development Area 6 into the Hove Station Quarter.
The City Plan SPG 15 on tall building identifies the area adjacent to Hove Station as a node for taller developments of 8-15 storeys. The Second Draft Neighbourhood Plan (Policy 18.iv) states a preference for buildings of 8-15 storeys ‘ …. to peak at around 15 storeys or above’.
This proposal peaks at 17 storeys. However, it will provide a single ‘beacon building’ – a strong visual signifier of the proposed Hove Station Quarter. Such a tall signature building is a vital component of the place-making which the NP is seeking to promote. It is virtually adjacent to the Station and therefore visually defines the location of the sustainable transport hub – the core of the proposed Hove Station Quarter.
We are aware that a minority of residents are concerned about the potential impact of high buildings. But the evidence of our substantial community engagement work to date is that there is no groundswell of public opposition to a single very tall building, Moreover, the final Neighbourhood Plan for DA6 will make it clear that this height does not set a precedent for the rest of the redevelopment of the Conway Strategic Allocation and the rest of the DA6 South of the Railway as identified in the emerging NP.
Overall, we believe that the application meets the DA6 policy requirement for a high quality design which will deliver an ‘attractive and sustainable mixed use area’.
In 2015, HSNF met with the developer Matsim. This dialogue enabled us to comment on and influence the evolving proposals and to subsequently include a public exhibition of the draft proposals at our fourth Have Your Say Day on November 21st which had over 130 participants. The dialogue focused exclusively on the physical design aspects of the scheme and did not specifically address housing tenure and price. The issue of the proportion of affordable housing will be a key concern of the council and it is a major issue for the ongoing development of the Neighbourhood Plan which will be addressed at our fifth Have Your Say Day.
Initial Officer Response to Hove Station Neighbourhood Plan – Outline (January 2016) The following comments are provided to help inform the meeting on 22 January 2016 and the options for progressing neighbourhood planning in the Hove Station area: Industrial Land: A planned relocation approach takes time, no quick fixes are readily apparent. The ability to … Read more
