Newsletter March 2010

. St Helen’s Down Residents Association


Newsletter March 2010



Dear Resident



There are number of things to report in the road, beyond the usual request for your subscription towards the road maintenance fund.



Start of our website! You can now access the new Residents Association website, still in its teething stage, at http://sthelensdownresidents.blogspot.com/ which will make it easier for you to know what is going on in your road, whether serious or just interesting, even just fun. You can comment on ideas and proposals there, or simply look. The website was designed by a resident, Charlie Chalcraft, to whom our great thanks. (Please read about Charlie’s Hastings Half Marathon run for Leukaemia Research on the website.)



News: Planning application at No. 5 turned down. The Residents Association of course recognises residents’ needs to improve and develop their own properties, but not to the extent of harming their neighbours, or detracting from the character of the road. At no. 5 there was just such a potentially harmful proposal. Both the town Planning Dept and the national Planning Inspectorate (in Bristol) fortunately upheld the Residents Association's appeal to reject it. Christine King and myself attended the Inspectorate's site inspection. In a significant judgment, the Planning Inspectorate wrote that "the nature of St Helens Down (SHD) with its grass verges, modest width, and dearth of footways tends to give it a less urban appearance" and this proposal "would unduly harm the character and appearance of the area". Such authoritative statements should help us in future.



The Hastings 'Big Map' Christine King, Rodney King and I attended a Borough session held to provide information on planned site allocation, which are part of the Development Plan for Hastings to the year 2026, to supercede existing site allocations in the Hastings Local Plan 2004. Our concern was in particular to protect the character of our area, to see the Pilot Field, the Firs and Archery Field designated as green spaces, and to protest at the over-development along the Ridge. We put all these concerns to the town planners in writing and were promised a reply. I receive all the town's planning applications every fortnight and will try to keep residents posted on the website of any planning applications or other information potentially affecting them.



Kev & Isy of no. 48 SHD, are on Voluntary Service Overseas in Ethiopia. In December the road carol singing collected over £270, and generous donations received later brought this up to £500, which John Geater sent out to Ethiopia to assist the impressive work of the food run and refuge house in Addis Ababa that Kev and Isy have been involved with. This money has helped obtain a larger house in which particularly sick children and women, some about to give birth, can receive help. Thank you to all who sang and all who gave. Altogether the carol singing has raised over £1500 in the past few years, making a difference to many lives, locally and abroad.



LOAF walk On Bank Holiday Monday, May 3rd, there is a charity walk, with a choice of 4, 9, 13 or 18 mile country routes exploring country footpaths and bluebell woods around Westfield, Sedlescombe and Guestling. Start and finish at Westfield Parish Church. Morning routes start at 9.00am. Afternoon routes at 1.30pm. Family picnic from 12.30 to 1pm in Westfield churchyard. Some of us from the Residents Association will be walking to collect sponsorship money for the Food Run in Ethiopia. If you would like to join us, please ring 428791.

Welcome to new residents We try to send a letter to all new residents in the road, welcoming them and telling them about the Residents Association and our maintenance fund for the road, but we do not always know they have moved here. If you know of a new resident near you, please let Stewart Anderson know on 428791 or at sgfanderson@btinternet.com - or on the website! - so that we can welcome them.

Annual Road Subscriptions The annual road maintenance subscription is now due. You will probably know that the residents of St Helens Down club together to pay to keep the road and its unadopted road surface in a decent state. Indeed Household no’s 1 to 74 are legally obliged to, including residents with corner houses abutting the road. Doing this in turn makes it a pleasant road to use for those of us who drive and walk on it fairly frequently, as we expect you do. It also helps support the value of our houses and makes them easier to sell should we ever choose to. The subscription also includes public liability insurance to cover accidents road users could claim for against us. And if we were not to look after the road surface reasonably well, we would eventually end up with a road similar to Pine Avenue. Please would you now pay the 2010 subscription (associate membership for those not living on the unadopted stretch) to our treasurer, Peter Cooper, by 31st May, using the separate form.

With best wishes to all residents Stewart Anderson (Chairman, SHDRA)