THE estimable Dave Bangs and Whitehawk residents are rightly concerned about impact on wildlife and ecology in their “fish and chips” part of the Downs (The Argus, October 29) but wrong to believe it would not happen in Hove.

Wrong too that just giving their views about the proposed Hyde housing project will get them anywhere.

The campaigners need to understand how bad the situation really is.

In spite of a saveHOVE campaign that led to getting a planning brief for Park House in Old Shoreham Road and help from badger experts to try to protect their extensive habitat throughout that site, delivery of affordable housing trumped all that and a huge, ugly block of flats was waved through.

In spite of a saveHOVE campaign to prevent a section of Hove Park by the Engineerium being sold off to a free school, bankrolled by central Government and protected by a Covenant put in place by the Stanford Estate when making the land available for a park (opened in 1906), both planning consent and a long lease were provided to a bi-lingual primary school.

This was in spite of that actual area being over-supplied with primary school places. And in spite of the badgers living between that former Hove Borough Council nursery area and the Engineerium.

In spite of protests about the badgers at the Engineerium, in a hollow by the park, they too got an excavation and new build planning consent.

The drive to stuff units of housing in every conceivable sliver and pocket of land is relentless and driven by both national and council planning policies alongside “Corporate Objectives”.

Planning officers give every appearance of being under the cosh and serving those needs.

Unless powerful use of planning laws and policies can be mustered which would stand up and allow Judicial Review of any consent, all the bluster and “views” are powerless to stop a development.

Indeed it also prevents planners and councillors from refusing consent that can be overturned on appeal by developers.

The only time the public has any voice is at the creation of planning policy stage. By asking for and getting a Medina House Planning Brief from Brighton and Hove City Council, those of us who fought off Sirus Taghan’s wild and ugly redevelopment plans for the site were able to wear him down and get the one final refusal that meant he was willing to sell it on to Polly Samson and David Gilmour (who are building a poetic near-replica of Medina House there now).

I hope campaigners in Whitehawk have time to get themselves schooled-up so they can make their case meaningfully, with photographic evidence, in planning application public consultation responses.

Photos of wildlife in enough context to prove the animals are on that site needs to be provided alongside whatever legal and policy arguments they may have.

Views alone won’t cut any ice.

And finally, the council is not making public response easy and earlier this year I fought for and got a decision reversed which allows the public to email and post responses (vital if giving photos and pages of evidence) and not just be required to respond online on the planning register itself.

Some may remember reading about that in the Argus.

Valerie Paynter saveHOVE
Clarendon Road, Hove