Campaigners set to fight Hove tower block proposal – which goes before planners next week

Davigdor Road New Build, image by HGP Architects for Withdean Commercial

Campaigners against high rises in Hove will try to convince councillors not to approve plans for another towerblock next week.

Withdean Commercial Property’s plan to build 894sqm of office space on the ground floor and 52 flats on the site of the former Hyde offices in Davigdor Road has been recommended for approval by officers.

The developer is working with Hove-based Imex Exhibitions, which says it has outgrown its Ellen Street offices and wants to build new offices, a basement car park and 52 flats on the old Hyde site.

But the final decision lies with the city council’s planning committee which meets next Wednesday (June 12).

Members of the Hove Gold action group, formed in response to this and other high-rise developments in the area, spoke at March’s committee against plans for 152 flats in four blocks for the neighbouring Peacock Industrial Estate in Lyon Close. These were approved.

‘Enough is enough’: Hove residents to campaign against high rise plans

The group is also concerned about yet more plans for blocks of 80 flats and a hotel at the corner of Cromwell Road and Palmeira Avenue which have yet to be decided.

As well as the offices the housing element is 22 one-bedroom, 27 x two-bedroom and three, three-bedroom flats in a part five-storey, part eight storey block.

Twenty-one parking spaces are planned for the site, with nine serving the offices and the other 12 for the two and three-bedroomed flat owners. Ninety cycle parking spaces are also planned.

The application has 49 objections and 17 letters of support on Brighton and Hove City Council’s website.

‘Utter disgrace’

Comments left on planning applications are all published anonymously on the council’s website.

One said: “It is an utter disgrace if you allow the over development of this site. The Artisan [a neighbouring housing development] is a blot on the landscape and still empty.

“There has been no REAL employment created to replace the loss of jobs from Hyde Housing from the Happy Cell and later Graham Plumbing Trade Point and Howdens.

“We can’t park we can’t get Dr’s appointments. Or dentists. The traffic will be horrendous. Don’t destroy this area any further.

Another objector wrote: “Thirty flats have already been delivered by the building of Artisan next door, and 168 flats are formally proposed in the industrial area immediately to the north of this site.

“It is understood that the P&H Building next door is also earmarked for conversion to residential flats.