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Agenda item
Project updates
11:20
· Project lead updates
o Town Centre Public Realm and Green Connections –
Ellie McDaniel, ESCC and ARUP
Minutes:
Town Centre Public Realm and Green Connections – Ellie McDaniel, Mike Wood and Thomas Weake
Key points:
· Following the presentation at the last meeting and based on feedback that has been received, the scope of the project has been increased to include Wellington Place
· Public and stakeholder engagement was launched last Monday (22nd January) on the East Sussex County Council consultation hub and will be supported by exhibitions and stakeholder workshops in the borough
· The project objectives, summary of work carried out to date, key challenges and public and stakeholder engagement programme were summarised
· It is recognised that there are several challenges faced by the project and it is hoped that these can be resolved via the engagement process and the technical baselining
· It is intended to submit the planning application in July 2024
· Engagement material has been produced, including posters, a brochure and a postcard linking to the online survey which closes on the 1st March
Q&A / Comments:
Sean Dennis commented that the local business community are broadly supportive of the project from what it understands so far and is keen to learn more and engage. It is good to hear that there is recognition of the impact it will have on public and private transport. Hastings residents are reliant on taxis for various reasons and this is a really important aspect that needs to be considered, as well as the flow of buses. He also commented that a number of businesses, particularly those in Havelock Road which will be directly affected know nothing about the project. It is acknowledged that there are workshops taking place but there may be a need to arrange a separate event for Business Improvement District (BID) and Chamber of Commerce members.
Ellie explained that it is intended to do some door-to-door visits to businesses in the area and that a separate event will be arranged for BID and Chamber members.
Emma Smith asked about the main delivery challenges, what these were and how these have been taken into account.
Ellie responded that the two big challenges are flooding and being able to do planting in a way that works in the environment there. A wide area is being looked at which has some issues such as high winds along the seafront and Havelock Road does not get the right amount of sun hence the engagement with local experts to ensure what is being done will be robust and stand the test of time given the environment in Hastings.
Another is the infrastructure side of things, in order to unlock the amount of public realm that we’re looking at here significant changes will be needed to the infrastructure, including changes to the bus routes and taxi ranks. Work is underway with key stakeholders to ensure that what is being proposed will be feasible for the town.
The construction-based delivery part is yet another challenge, with regards to phasing, operational businesses, access and accessibility to the town which will be rigorously checked through the process of design and implementation and addressed on a case by case basis.
Kate Adams asked about the specific groups and communities that have been consulted with and suggested they should include families, those with small children and disabled people. She asked for assurance on some of the more involved details around how access will be achieved, such as the width of pavements, level and no drops between curbs and what a pedestrian area needs and asked how these design principles are going to be tested.
Arup has its access and inclusivity team specialist on board and as part of the design process transport, inclusive design, ecology, lighting will be done in an inclusive way and will be connectable and adaptable to all demographics and public groups, this is part of Arup’s embedded design process.
Jane Howard-Smith commented on behalf of Sally-Ann Hart MP that this is an excellent and fantastic scheme and suggested that the bottom right bubble on page 5 of the consultation brochure needs to include ‘protect against flooding and changing climate’ as this is an issue that frequently comes up in discussions about the town centre. This will be added in to the next iteration.
James Harris added that in terms of delivery challenges, the town centre environment is probably the most challenging one in which to work due to the many moving parts, including businesses that need to go about their business which in itself is extremely challenging. The other thing based on ESCC’s experience is changing anything in transport terms is an incredibly subjective thing. The really important bit is to make sure that everybody that has got something to say about it needs to feed in. What we’ll never get is a position that everybody likes everything in the same way, but this will be an iterative process because it is a really kind of ground breaking project for the town.
Another delivery risk is budget, until such a time that you have a final design and you go to the market and the market tells you what it is that they would build it for, there is a delivery risk on that. So, something for us all to be mindful of is that we’ve all got lots of aspiration, expectations and hopes for this scheme but ultimately it needs to be something that we can all afford.
Cllr Hilton commented that this is an exciting project and that she has been involved with it since the beginning but is a bit worried that given that we know there’s going to be a huge amount of revisions in response to this long overdue engagement process, the only bit in RIBA3 that mentions a repeat of this process is a presentation back to the town deal board. A lot more than that will have to be done as there will be all sorts of concerns and people will need to see how these are being addressed before it goes to planning, so that needs to be added to the programme.
Thomas agreed that this is right and a continued piece of engagement post the initial part goes some way to deliver that sense of ownership in the new asset that we’re creating and the significance of it, so it is not only the right thing to do in terms of process, it actually fundamentally helps the outcome.
Cllr Hilton also commented that going forward, there’s lots of technical stuff that needs resolving and there has been lots of questions about maintenance but in terms of thinking about pop ups, improvisation responses, stuff that can be tried out even though the £10m won’t cover everything we want. We need to build in that opportunity for local communities, businesses and residents to trial stuff in what is their town and their garden, their town centre garden space. We need to ensure that there are opportunities to try stuff, of which there are lots of great examples across the country that we can build on.
Nicole Collomb commented that it is great to see the plans coming to public consultation. They look great but obviously are going to create a lot of discussion, which will not all be positive, with people’s fears of change. On the issue of the challenging environment for planting, there have been meetings with Fergus Garrett as he went to the last stakeholder engagement session and from the feedback he has given it seems there was some really positive feedback there. It would be great to take on the issue of planting and challenging conditions, but also this aspiration of our original garden town proposal to really create a Hastings specific planting palette that you know is going to be robust but is also going to reflect the character of the town as a coastal town and the particular environment of the individual sort of planting site. Fergus has come up with the idea of doing a workshop focussed on the planting palette and Arup has a huge amount of experience to bring to this, but it’d be really great to bring in some local and more distant experts.
Anna Merla commented that from a Public Health point of view, it would be good to consider the data around the evaluation of the Sheffield project in order to address the main challenges that have been mentioned given how it has informed this project. Using this evidence might help people that are a bit hesitant in implementing this project to change their minds.
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