Setback for St Leonards sports village and homes plans
A computer generated concept village showing an aerial view of what the proposed Combe Valley Sports Village may look like SUS-170908-104531002
Multi-million pound plans to create a huge new state-of-the-art sports complex in St Leonards, together with 400 new homes have hit a major setback.
Keepmoat Homes was set to deliver the associated housing schemes as part of the massive development.
But the Observer learned today (Wednesday, January 3) that the firm has decided to pull out for ‘commercial reasons’.
A planning application was expected to be formally submitted at the start of this year.
A spokeswoman for Keepmoat Homes said: “We have been working with the local council and sports club for some time to evaluate the potential of a new homes development in St Leonards.
“However, after careful consideration, we formally withdrew from this opportunity in December for commercial reasons and currently have no plans to build in Hastings.”
The proposals were first unveiled in November 2016, which would give Hastings United Football Club a 3,000 capacity stadium, and a new home for Hastings & St Leonards Priory Cricket Club and South Saxons Hockey Club.
The complex would be situated in the middle two tiers of the existing Bexhill Road playing fields.
There would be a four-court sports hall, a gym for sports, fitness and healthy living activities and a dance studio, together with meeting rooms and full catering facilities.
Daren Burney, a director of Burney Group, the principal developer, said: “We, the scheme promotor (Bohemia Hastings LLP) have been working for the past three years with both Hastings and Rother Councils to deliver the new sports village together with 400 new homes.
“Latterly we engaged with Keepmoat Homes as our joint venture partner to deliver the scheme.
“In late December we received a call from David Carmichael, the group land and partnerships director at Keepmoat Group, who advised us that while the project is an attractive proposition, going forward for strategic reasons the board wanted to focus on other areas in the country.
“We still await formal written confirmation from the Keepmoat board of its withdrawal and once we have this we will engage with other interested major UK housebuilders for the delivery phase of this exciting regeneration project.”
Peter Finch, chairman of the Horntye Park management company, said: “We are obviously disappointed to hear this news but have utmost confidence that Daren Burney will come forth with something good for the town to fulfil the project.”
Should imagine a developer will come in ... money is money and it has to happen
However i appreciate the club has to move on to survive...i have had a little ‘whoop’ as I never want the pilot field to go ... football is changing and i don’t like it
Sure it will all work out , and we get stay of excucution into Lego ground
It is bad news because the club is heavily committed to the move. At best, there will be delay; and that increases the risk that Pilot Field will become unsafe before the new ground is ready. As Chris says, fixing Pilot Field cannot be afforded by the club. So, we have to relocate. The nightmare is that we will find ourselves unable to use PF before a new ground is available. I know nothing of the financial arrangements of the proposed development beyond what is in the public domain. But what is clear from that is that the club is a minor player. The club does not own the freehold of PF. It is the Council, the developers and whoever it is who eventually builds the houses who will call the shots. What concerns me most is that the builders who have now withdrawn are likely telling the simple truth - that the development is not commercially attractive compared to what they might achieve elsewhere.Why might that be? Could it be because new houses in our town won't sell well because there aren't the well paid jobs in the town; and there aren't the jobs because firms won't expand or locate here because our infrastructure is third world poor and our labour force is low skilled because of decades of sub standard education? These are matters utterly beyond the influence of the club. But if the development gets squeezed, who do you think it might be who will be compromised - the developers? their shareholders? the Council? or perhaps us and those who use the Horntye?
-- Edited by GeoffM on Wednesday 3rd of January 2018 09:36:43 PM
saw the consultation they did and the sports village looked impressive but already the stadium plans had been scaled back so this news can only mean one thing that the project is not financially viable or definitely as it stands not attractive enough like Geoff implies. Developers are probably only really interested in the housing that they can sell to make the money so this is a big worry as anyone that is going to build a stadium for the club in return for the land will cut corners and costs in the stadium and sports village to maximise the profit they can take out of Hastings. Have not been to the Pilot Field that many times but everytime I go the place looks more of a mess and run down than the previous visit and this certainly is bad news
The main stand at the PF is too put it crudely on life support and beyond reasonable help. To be frank I am concerned for the clubs future if this doesn’t happen.
The main stand is held at the rear by stantions which help stop it falling down the hill behind it, with health & safety regs getting tighter each time it’s inspected it’s only a matter of a few years before they don’t pass I would imagine.
Also the age of the ground means extremely high maintence costs which are slowly becoming near un-viable & unaffordable.
Love the ground but it’s definitely on its last legs in its current form.
-- Edited by Dan on Thursday 4th of January 2018 07:33:55 PM
