Our efforts to engage with Authorities regarding the former Market Garden Building Site.
Dear Residents – we are a network of neighbours who live next to the building site or on the Site Access Route.
As many of us are walkers we meet mostly outside or talk online via the ‘What’s Going On In Fairlight’ Facebook Page, where photos and videos of various concerns are posted: the badgers, wildlife area, stream, trees, inconsiderate parking, noise nuisance, reversing lorries, blocked driveways, etc. We’ve recently started a short monthly walkabout, where we view the Site and its impact from resident gardens to offer support.
In April 2023 we asked Rother District Council Planning Officers to provide an update to the high number of villagers who took the time to read the Construction Management Plan (CMP) and completed a Breach of Planning Condition Complaints Form. Rother Officers continue to receive “high levels of correspondence” about the Site. No written updates have been provided.
We also contacted the Neighbourhood Policing Team and were told that Officers had visited the Site in April. No updates have been provided. We’ve been informed Laura Harrison is the main PCSO contact for Fairlight Village. Her email is laura.harrison@sussex.pnn.police.uk
A lot of the Site issues fall under the banner of Community Safety. We sent a rep to the Fairlight Parish Council meeting in March and have visited the Drop-in Social Hub twice; however we are unclear as to how the Parish Council’s Five Year Plan regarding crime, neighbourhood watch or parking problems is being implemented.
It would be helpful for any Authorities who visit the Site to spend 15 minutes ‘face to face’ with residents. We’ve been contacted by residents in Fairlight Gardens, Broadway, Smugglers Way, Bramble Way, Lower Waites Lane, Shepherds Way and Waites Lane with issues about how the development impacts on their daily lives, e.g. noise levels, inability to use their gardens, and the resultant stress. We do not speak with one voice and have a wide range of different concerns.
Residents with concerns about the LWL stream, drainage or flooding issues can contact the Lower Waites Lane Road Maintenance Association Chairman
Residents with issues about the builders can contact Piers Cowley, the Site Manager for GemSelect, on formermarketgarden@gmail.com or you can also email Gino at futuresouthhomes.ltd@gmail.com
If you need help reporting any issues about the site you can contact our Southern Rother District Councillors: Cllr Andrew Mier Cllr.Andrew.Mier@rother.gov.uk or the newly elected rep Cllr Tim Grohne cllr.Tim.Grohne@rother.gov.uk
Best wishes, Paul Wilson-Patterson – ‘Village People’, Bramble Way, Fairlight Cove.