Battle to save bowls green from builders
by GILL MILLER
Published: 25 August 2006
BATTLE lines are being drawn over a prime open space.
Neighbours of historic Gullivers Bowls Club are preparing to fight new plans to build on the green in Knole Road.
They face opposition from the bowling club who own the land and developer Churchill Retirement Living.
Forty-one sheltered retirement homes are planned. But the club claims if the development is not allowed to go ahead, it will not survive a year.
The area is the town's only open space between Egerton Park and Galley Hill.
Gullivers treasurer Christine Lloyd-Evans said they were "property rich but cash poor". They want to see retirement homes built on the south side of the club land with a new indoor bowling rink to the north and a new clubhouse to replace its current tired and asbestos-built building.
Churchill is offering them a lifeline to remain on the site with better facilities for their 140-plus members and to be able to encourage a junior membership. "We really want to survive. We feel Churchill have done their homework and we are hopeful this time planning permission will be given," said Mrs Lloyd-Evans.
In 2003 planners refused an application by Beechwood Homes to build a mix of flats and town houses on the green space. They were ultimately swayed by a letter from Sport England which supported refusal.
Neighbours formed Gullivers Action Group (GAG) and won support from residents further afield to preserve one of the last green spaces in the town centre. They stopped the building of two-storey blocks but now could face the possibility of four storeys being built.
A consultation meeting was held last month between the proposed developers, the bowls club and some local residents.
Some members of GAG felt action was needed and have formed themselves into the Cantelupe Gardens Park Association. This was to challenge the latest proposed development and to offer alternative solutions to benefit Bexhill as a whole.
At a meeting in the crypt of St Barnabas Church on Tuesday, chairman Christine Madeley emphasised they were not a splinter group of GAG but a sub-committee offering the same key objective of “no building on Gullivers.”
In a letter to residents they said the Cantelupe Gardens Park Association was a group of very concerned residents from surrounding properties in Brassey, Cantelupe, Middlesex and Knole Road that directly overlook this site.
“Our intention is to alert the surrounding community to the potential loss of this green site, to challenge this latest proposed development and to offer alternatives that benefit the Bexhill community as a whole.”