Friday 12 February 2010

SAVE Ramsgate’s Adelaide Gardens’ urges National Heritage Body

One of Britain’s leading heritage organisations has given its support to residents of Ramsgate’s Adelaide Gardens/Liverpool Lawn Conservation Area as they resist plans to close off the southern end of Adelaide Gardens with a three-storey terrace of 7 pastiche Georgian/‘Gothick’ houses.



Early last week (February 8) SAVE Britain’s Heritage e-mailed TDC Case Officer Doug Brown with detailed objections to a proposed application by Thanet developer DJ Ellis Construction Ltd.. The application is due to be discussed by the TDC Planning Committee on Wednesday February 17, but so far there has been no reference to the SAVE representations in official TDC briefing documents prepared for the meeting.

In their letter of objection, SAVE points out that the Adelaide Gardens site is one of the most sensitive in Ramsgate, situated within a Ramsgate conservation area with Grade II listed- late Georgian buildings to either side of the site. SAVE maintains that the proposed development would completely enclose the southern end of Adelaide Gardens and alter an historic line of existing Georgian buildings, contrary to planning guidance rules that stipulate that new developments in conservation areas should seek to ‘preserve or enhance’ the historic pattern.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage is one of the country’s principal conservation amenity organisations. It was set up in 1975, the European Year of Architectural Heritage, under the presidency of Marcus Binney, the Architecture Editor of The Times and a leading architectural historian. Since then SAVE has been extremely active in focussing attention on historic buildings at risk and on historic sites – such as Adelaide Gardens - which might be subject to inappropriate development.

Russell White, Chair of the Adelaide Gardens/Liverpool Lawn Residents’ Association said ‘The many residents of Ramsgate’s historic West Cliff area who object to these inappropriate development plans for Adelaide Gardens are extremely pleased to have the support of this eminent national heritage organisation. Like SAVE, the residents accept that there is a case for new development on this site, but believe that the current proposed scheme is too large in terms of footprint, bulk and scale’.

Contacts:
Russell White (e-mail: russue@talktalk.net)
Andrew Joynes (e-mail: andrewjoynes@tiscali.co.uk )
Ed. More pictures of this part of Ramsgate here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop3/id12.htm you will have to scroll down the page a bit.
If you want to see this for yourself, please visit http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet F/TH/09/0915
Having spent quite a while looking at the plans, it took me quite a while to figure out what is being proposed, so this link takes you to before and after pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Blogpicts1210/id8.htm

4 comments:

  1. No wonder TDC has not made reference to the document maybe it would mean doing something in a conservation area ie CONSERVE it

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  2. Hmm - do their job and preserve the area or squeeze in six extra houses and get lots more council tax - thats a tough decision for a bunch of .. after all they did build a block of flats next to Liverpool Lawn. Besides maybe they'll need a job with Ellis soon.

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  3. For the record, it's worth noting that there were other 'National Heritage Bodies' that replied to the consultation about this planning application - namely English Heritage and The Ancient Monument Society.

    I quote below one of these responses from the planning commitee papers.

    [quote]

    The Ancient Monument Society comment that

    "We raise no objection to the demolition of the present bungalow - indeed we welcome it.

    The redevelopment is a polished, confident and accomplished essay in two historic styles which marry well. It is a rare indeed for a designer to get under the skin of the architectual language of the 18th century and display a very Georgian panache in combining Gothick and the more sedate if refined langauge of the contemporary stepped terrace. The drawings of detailings confirm how impresive is the command shown by Mr Browne.

    We urge that planning permission and conservation area consent be granted. The development will be an adornment to the Conservation Area."

    [end quote]

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  4. Oh the irony, a TDC preferred developer!!!

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.