Stanmer Park revamp plans unveiled

9:51am Wednesday 24th October 2012 in News By Tim Ridgway, Local government reporter

Brighton's Stanmer Park could be revamped as part of widespread plans to create a gateway to the South Downs.

Consultants have been hired by Brighton and Hove City Council to draw up proposals to transform large parts of the 485 hectares of the 18th century park.

At its heart are multimillion pound plans to restore the empty Grade II listed Home Farm buildings in the centre of the village to turn them into a visitor centre using Heritage Lottery Fund money.

Town hall bosses believe this will spark the restoration of areas of the park while celebrating its historic character.

But Jamie Hooper, who lives in the village, said: “Park users from all categories appreciate what Stanmer stands for and will work with sensible suggestions to improve the environment here.

“But we will not accept changes that either are not practical or inhibit the way of 21st century living.”

Most of the existing Stanmer Park was created by the Pelham family in the 18th century.

The estate was bought by Brighton Corporation for £225,000 in 1947, bringing an end to the 230-year family ownership.

Draft proposals from consultants LUC were run past villagers on Monday.

Among the ideas put forward include re-routing cars away from the village and creating a separate combined “greenway” route for cyclists and pedestrians.

The main car park to the south of the drive would be grassed over with a new car park created near Stanmer House.

The plans also suggest opening up the council's garden nurseries to the public with demonstrations on sustainability measures.

Trees could also be moved, new woodland planted and the lawn and cricket green outside Stanmer House reinstated.

Pete West, the chairman of the council's environment committee, said: “Stanmer Park is the jewel in the crown of the council's countryside estate and our main gateway to the national park.

“We want to restore and improve it while retaining its character and making it relevant to modern expectations.

“We've created an exciting vision for the park and believe it would enhance the landscape and provide a high quality gateway to the national park.

“We hope to establish a consensus in favour of the very positive vision we have created.”

Any plans will have to be approved by one of the council's democratic committees.

Comments(20)

Atticus says...
10:06am Wed 24 Oct 12

Sounds good. I'll be interested to see the plans.

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Tallywhacker says...
10:11am Wed 24 Oct 12

Why oh why are consultants hired for every decision? If we need them why do we need council employees? Surely the council hire able staff who can advise them without calling in outsiders. you would figure that after being employed for X number of years in a job they would get the hang of it without asking someone else what they should be doing. What is even more galling is that the "experts" are usually ex government employees hired by their ex workmates to do the same work but for more cash.

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Hoarder12345444 says...
10:28am Wed 24 Oct 12

I love stanmer park I grew up going there. I remember the old mills working years ago. The stanmer house restoration was brilliant, be great to have the mills looking good. Be great when it's done. Who loves those trails on their mountain bike??? I do!!

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mtmoocher says...
10:29am Wed 24 Oct 12

Absolutely spot on!
.
Also why not hold a public competition? We are always hearing how Brighton & Hove is a hub of creativity ,,,,,blah blah,,,,!

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Indigatio says...
10:40am Wed 24 Oct 12

No doubt will end up with more facilities for the travelling community too.

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mtmoocher says...
11:13am Wed 24 Oct 12

mtmoocher wrote:
Absolutely spot on!
.
Also why not hold a public competition? We are always hearing how Brighton & Hove is a hub of creativity ,,,,,blah blah,,,,!
This was in reference to Tallywhacker btw

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paul76 says...
11:14am Wed 24 Oct 12

Why not just leave it alone for god's sake. Greenways for pedestrians and cyclists? Is that not the grass areas either side of the road?

Why is this council intent on changing everything. It isn't broken, so doesn't need fixing.

All it will lead to is car parks that you will need to pay to use. Another disguised money making scheme.

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sue suki says...
11:23am Wed 24 Oct 12

So they want to revamp Stanmer Park.......it will probably end up worse off.

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Crystal Ball says...
11:45am Wed 24 Oct 12

Here's an idea: just leave it as a park.

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Mr P Brown says...
11:53am Wed 24 Oct 12

Once the major work on Lewes Road is completed, I doubt anyone will go there, because of the time it will take sitting in the inevitable traffic jams

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kerryfee says...
12:05pm Wed 24 Oct 12

How can the council afford to do this when they can't afford to replace bins that have been set on fire in other parks?

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Bob_The_Ferret says...
12:22pm Wed 24 Oct 12

Ooh, another Gateway sort of thing! They always scare the willies out of me...

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wippasnapper says...
12:26pm Wed 24 Oct 12

I’ve lived & grown up in Brighton I’ve seen it go from a well kept place to live to a unsightly place to live, I spent a lot of my childhood in Stanmer woods & I used to visit Stanmer House gardens but over the last 15 years the gardens have been left to rack and ruin and now the council wont to take it and turn it into well who knows what, one seeing’s you now have to pay to park in Preston Park it would not surprise me one bit if you have to pay to park in Stanmer but with that aside will the council and the national park organization be making excess for disabled wheelchair/scooter people not just in the jewel in the crown “Park” but up through the woods and will they become part of the National Parks, Britain’s breathing spaces, (http://www.national
parks.gov.uk/index) so people of all walks of life can enjoy, secondly I agree with paul76 a Greenway for pedestrians and cyclists i.e. cyclists should be given precise routs to follow AND if they just happen to stray off there routs they SHOULD give duo care to pedestrians and there pets as I walk my dog up through Stanmer woods every morning and on many actions having to deal with antisocial cyclists that seem to think they have right of way just this morning a antisocial cyclists deliberately ran in to my dog because he was in his way…
Its nice to read they wont to make stanmer a better place but I dote get why the hell you have to remove trees to make it better The trees make stanmer what it is today just dote destroy what the park has become over the years to line your pocks with gold.

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Cass says...
12:33pm Wed 24 Oct 12

It's a park!! It has enough room for walkers, bikers and drivers, and travellers who seem to find it a superb place to hitch up. Why should they find the need to change what is a brilliant place,( minus the travellers please,) for families to go. It costs nothing, ahhhhh!! is that it, spend a lot of money then charge us to enter. Cynical? you bet I am.

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The Real Phil says...
12:42pm Wed 24 Oct 12

The grassing over of the car park, and creation of one nearer to the house will of course lead to the creation of extra thousands of tons of vehicle pollution due to the additional "park miles" that will be driven.
Naturally we would expect the plans to include state of the art PAY and DISPLAY machines for the new car park with a tarrif set to encourage what the council would consider "the right sort of visitor".
I would like to be wrong, but somwhow doubt it. Like others, I too grew up with Stanmer as a major part of my childhood. Fine renovate the farm, but the park has grass and it has trees, let's not go looking for a way to "theme" it just like everything else in the 21st century.

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Vigilia says...
12:56pm Wed 24 Oct 12

1998 The Vision for Stanmer
2003 Colson Stone report
2008 HLS Improvement plan
2009/2010 The Stanmer Conservation Review
2010 The Stanmer Park Experience
2012 The Stanmer Master Plan
and in all that time not a single jot of action only more and more hot air, enough to boost global warming to catastrophic levels.
Get the very fundamentals right like a dedicated estate manager and team situated in the park instead of the thirteen or so departments with a finger in the pie of so called "management" of Stanmer Park, rid it once and for all of the squatting vagrants and restore it to the public recreational facility it is meant to be.
All Stanmer Park needs is some action and not more bloody talking and meaningless "consultation."

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getThisCoalitionOut says...
9:13pm Wed 24 Oct 12

Don't waste £millions on a park - leave it alone. Spend money on all the poor people of Brighton and the homeless - this council is so useless it's infuriating.

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george smith says...
7:35am Thu 25 Oct 12

Vigilia wrote:
1998 The Vision for Stanmer 2003 Colson Stone report 2008 HLS Improvement plan 2009/2010 The Stanmer Conservation Review 2010 The Stanmer Park Experience 2012 The Stanmer Master Plan and in all that time not a single jot of action only more and more hot air, enough to boost global warming to catastrophic levels. Get the very fundamentals right like a dedicated estate manager and team situated in the park instead of the thirteen or so departments with a finger in the pie of so called "management" of Stanmer Park, rid it once and for all of the squatting vagrants and restore it to the public recreational facility it is meant to be. All Stanmer Park needs is some action and not more bloody talking and meaningless "consultation."
Totally agree, will probably involve sheep as well

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Chaffinch1 says...
9:34am Thu 25 Oct 12

Stanmer Park is a fantastic, FREE resource that is well loved and well used. Leave it alone!

And keep those bloody pay and display machines away from it too. We don't all have bottomless pockets full of change.

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gusset snatcher says...
9:52am Thu 25 Oct 12

Leave Stanmer Park alone. Try clearing the dump of a 'traveller' camp at Horsdean instead..... like getting rid of it altogether and re-instating it as the beautiful park it once was

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