A Council plan to consolidate Royal Mail’s Brighton and Hove sorting offices into a new single facility to be built on Patcham Court Farm is courting controversy with Patcham residents, sparking a protest, petition, formation of an action group and hundreds of submissions to the City’s Planning Department.
The proposals would involve Royal Mail vacating its two existing sorting offices in the City – at North Road, Brighton and Denmark Villas, Hove – and building a new facility in Patcham.
The Leader of the Council has said that the Greens are pushing the delivery office plans as they consider Patcham Court Farm a strategic development site, surplus to requirement. The Council wants to build houses on the existing Royal Mail sites in the city centre through its housing venture Hyde Homes and is keen for Royal Mail to vacate these buildings and move to Patcham.
However Patcham residents feel differently and are opposed to a large city-wide wide industrial distribution facility being introduced to an area with quiet residential streets that is adjacent to the Patcham Conservation Area.
Patcham Court Farm may sound familiar to many readers as it has been subject to other council proposals over the years. It was the proposed location for a park and ride plan in 2005 under the Labour Council but this was fiercely opposed by residents and ultimately defeated at the time.
The present day proposal for a delivery office was due to come before the Council last week, as the Council wanted to gain approval for the first part of the venture: Selling the land at Patcham Court Farm to Royal Mail.
However when the paperwork for the meeting came out, Patcham residents found that their objections and petitions raised over many months had been airbrushed from the report due to be considered by councillors. There was no mention of their views or any opposition to the proposals. In a reprieve for residents, the council decided to withdraw the agenda item to make it more balanced, delaying consideration until after the summer.
Local Action Group ‘Patcham Against the Royal Mail’ has since stepped up its campaign, highlighting the reasons why residents are opposed to the development, organising two protests in the past two weeks.
They have serious concerns over the increase in traffic such a development would impose on Patcham, the increase in workers parking their cars in the area as not enough parking spaces have been supplied, the increase in noise and pollution, and the real threat of water pollution from chemicals on the site as the site sits above an aquifer, and potential flooding in the Old Village once the land is concreted over.
The forecast is for 162 staff arrivals between 6 and 7 every morning, 80 red fleet departures between 9 and 10am and 213 staff departures between 2 and 3. One or two HGV deliveries every hour, starting from 12am, except between 9pm and midnight. The entrance to the site is from Vale Avenue - a narrow residential road already has significant traffic issues, with parked cars, speeding vehicles coming off the A27 and poor visibility.
The proposal is out of keeping with the area. Patcham has a historic village with one of the oldest churches in Brighton and the site is a stone’s throw from the Saxon All Saints Church. Once this development is there, residents fear it will open the whole area to development – the sorting office could increase, the allotments could be at risk, the whole of Horsdean could be threatened, as has already been the case. Patcham will change into an urban suburb and could end up with parking controls and thus another tax from the council.
There are additional concerns about water and flooding, which are an issue in Patcham area. As Dr Rhodes wrote back in 2005 during the park and ride debate, the aquifer (water bearing rock) at Patcham is within the inner source protection zone, Zone 1. This classification is not an indication of the extreme vulnerability in an area prone to flooding. Developing this site would be very risky.
Since the 20th July there have been 438 objections compared to only three letters of support lodged on the planning portal which shows the strength of feeling. 100-200 residents attended a protest last week at Vale Avenue. A petition organised by Patcham ward Councillors Alistair McNair and Anne Meadows’ has now attracted 523 signatures.
A battle between is brewing and it would certainly be against the will of local residents if the Greens and Labour force this through. Will they listen?
