Letter from Peter Ingram to Lewes Council about the proposed development at King's Mead 16 October 2002 Lewes District Council Planning and Environmental Services Department PO Box 2707 Southover House Southover Street Lewes East Sussex BN7 1DW For the attention of Steve Howe Dear Mr Howe Re: Planning Applications LW/02/1914 and LW/02/1915 St Mary's Nursing Home, Kingsmead, Seaford I am writing in connection with the above planning applications that have recently been submitted by Barratt Southern Counties Limited. St Mary's Nursing Home was previously a boys school called King's Mead, between 1914 and 1968, before it was sold and eventually converted into a nursing home. Earlier this year it was sold by the previous owners, Westminster Health Care Limited, to Sunline Properties Limited, a property development company, who have been jointly involved with Barratt on these applications. I was educated at King's Mead School, and since last year have been involved with a number of old boys of the school and a number of Seaford residents in trying to get the school and the chapel listed. Unfortunately our attempt to obtain listing was unsuccessful and the property was sold as referred to above. Our campaign to obtain listing did however generate considerable local interest, and Norman Baker, the MP for Lewes also lent his support. Attached are copies of newspaper articles relating to this. Our particular concern was that in the chapel there were memorials to a number of old boys who were killed in action during World War II. In addition the chapel itself is of considerable historic interest. Both the school buildings and the chapel are now in imminent danger of being demolished. Since then a group of old boys represented by Earl Howe, Dr David Maxwell (who lives and works in Eastbourne), John James and myself, have been in discussions with Sunline Properties about the possibility of including a memorial on the proposed development. You will see reference to this in the planning applications. Sunline Properties and Barratt have agreed to include a hexagonal area, which will be fenced off from the garden of Plot 9, which would contain a memorial to those old boys who died in action. Access to this area would be from Kingsmead Lane The memorial, we understand, would be in the form of an obelisk in granite. While we are happy with this proposal we are concerned about the need to ensure free access to the memorial for any interested parties, including especially old boys or staff of King's Mead or any relatives of those named on the memorial. We are concerned about the arrangements to ensure proper maintenance of the memorial site in the future. A proposal put forward by Sunline Properties on behalf of Barratt was for the creation of a Residents Management Company, which would have a covenant that the residents would be responsible for looking after and maintaining the memorial area in perpetuity. Details of this have yet to be finalised. This would seem to be a sensible solution. We thus urge the Council that the inclusion of this memorial on the development site and guaranteed access to it by interested parties and agreed arrangements for future maintenance should be a key condition in their decision to accept or reject any final application. If you need any further information or need to discuss this matter further I can be contacted during office hours on 020 7475 6410. Yours sincerely Peter Ingram
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