The March meeting of the Sussex Property Alliance (SPA) made real progress in building the ongoing relationship between developers, planners and builders in the region. The meeting, held at the Sussex Cricket Club, County Ground in Hove, attracted a diverse range of property professionals from across the region for what turned out to be a fascinating insight into the planning system.
Rob Fraser, Head of Planning Strategy at Brighton and Hove City Council, explained how local planning was being transformed and why the focus was now broader and increasingly westward-facing as a result of Brighton becoming the easterly marker of the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and of the ‘Greater Brighton’ project, bringing Shoreham and Worthing further into the mix.
Chris Gilbert of property developers QED Estates Ltd. shared his experience with the meeting as lead developer of the New England Quarter in Brighton, which transformed a derelict railway yard and car park into a thriving mix of business, leisure, retail and residential.
The Q&A session progressed into a positive exploration of how the channels of communication could be improved between planners and developers, so that both sides could limit the amount of time and money spent on getting an achievable scheme from plan to bricks and mortar.
The headline outcome was a commitment to try to keep informal communication lines open by Rob Fraser encouraging planners from Brighton and Hove to attend SPA meetings in the future, an invitation that will be extended to planners in neighbouring authorities.
Chris Coopey, Partner at Carpenter Box Chartered Accountants and Chartered Tax Advisers, compered the event and commented: “This was the best SPA event so far. This event has resulted in what should become a sustainable and pragmatic ongoing engagement between planners, builders and developers in Brighton. We now hope to extend this idea across all of the local authority boundaries in Sussex by inviting their planners to subsequent SPA meetings.”
The Sussex Property Alliance is sponsored by Chartered Accountants and Chartered Tax Advisers Carpenter Box, who have a specialist property and construction team, commercial agents Michael Jones, JELF who provide specialist insurance to the sector and by Bennett Griffin solicitors who undertake commercial property work.
