My comment regards the proposal to extend the existing strategic gap between Hastings and Fairlight to include an area which incorporates existing settlement, around roads such as Hill Road, The Close, Warren Road and Battery Hill.

In my capacity as a member of the "Design Working Group" for the Fairlight Parish Neighbourhood Plan, I was involved in a significant discussion around the proposals to cover existing settlement within the Fairlight Parish as part of the changes to the Strategic Gap in the DaSA Local Plan consultation.

The general mood of the discussion was that this inclusion of the original Fairlight settlement in to the Strategic Gap was seen as an attempt to apply a 'blunt instrument' to the control of development in an area where buildings can have quite a significant impact on the aesthetic value of the landscape (both positive and negative). The background paper mentions a recent development of a Contemporary Architecture style residential dwelling, which is part of Fairlight Cove as an example of a building which has a significant impact on the landscape. However, this building obviously passed the necessary planning permission hurdles in order to gain permission for development. My view is that the future Fairlight Neighbourhood Plan should be the mechanism used to capture what is acceptable development in Fairlight Parish, rather than impose a very strict blanket policy over an area of existing settlement. The proposed area of the new strategic gap extension includes a number of very poor quality buildings as well as brown field development opportunities that would benefit from being re-developed in the future to extend the residential capacity of the parish, where sites for significant development are very difficult to find due to the coastal nature of Fairlight constraining development sites, and there being a need to balance the impact of large new housing development sites with sympathetic infill. Hence some level of carefully controlled infill development would most likely have a positive impact to the housing stock in Fairlight Parish.

The extension to the Strategic Gap would most likely create a significant hurdle to any future development, both positive and negative. The use of the Neighbourhood Plan and good general planning policies would most likely prevent negative development, whilst allowing positive development - which would be in the interest of current and future residents of Fairlight.