Your letters - October 3

What demand?

IN response to references by recent correspondents to the alleged need for a new hotel with sea views to complement the De La Warr Pavilion, I would draw attention to some pertinent facts.

When the Pavilion was constructed in 1935, it was shoehorned into a small site, closely confined by the five storey Metropole Hotel to the west and Marina Court, a massive six storey block of apartments with shops beneath, to the north east, standing where the car park now exists. This juxtaposition probably accounts for the plain design of the west, north and east facades of the building, which aspects give every appearance of an iconic block of municipal public toilets.

Desperate visitors to the town must surely be enticed by such appearance and, no doubt, their urgent entrance falsely inflate the Pavilion's visitor records!

If the Metropole Hotel had not been damaged by fire and bombing in WW2, it would probably now be standing derelict or converted into flats, closed by lack of demand, like every other large hotel in the town.

Four years ago, the golden opportunity to construct a new hotel on either of the two sites at the Sackville roundabout escaped Rother planners in the unfortunate absence of evidence of demand and an optimist willing to risk the necessary investment.

These vital pre-requisites are still awaited but, in the meantime, how about a proper car park instead, which should attract rather more visitors to the town than six bars in a hole in the ground behind the Colonnade? The former Kwik Fit depot site seems to be available and there is still the Sainsbury's option. I rest my case.

J HODSON

Cooden Sea Road

Cafe confusion

OH dear! Yet another incomprehensible planning decision by our mighty district council. This time, it's the Sovereign Light Cafe who have been refused planning permission to add some toilets to the end of their existing building, without which they have been advised that they will have to close.

So the council - which owns the building, and presumably has the power to shut the business down, with the loss of ten jobs, and which has been busy closing toilets all over the town centre, and which is keen to encourage a variety of different architectural styles in the town, and which noted in its own report to its own planning committee that the cafe is outside the Bexhill Town Centre Conservation Area - this district council now decides that the proposed facility would, if permitted, be detrimental to the visual amenities of the public promenade and fail to take the opportunity to contribute positively to the appearance of the building or the public enjoyment of the public space.

Somebody in the Town Hall must be having a laugh. The extension is small, entirely in keeping with the existing building, which has stood for over 40 years, and a mere mote in Bexhill's eye compared to the planks of De La Warr Heights and the other monstrosity opposite (and I don't mean the Pavilion) - not to mention stainless steel wind shelters.

All of this information was gleaned from the council's website - so, congratulations are due for that. If only the process of decision-making in planning matters were as transparent as the outcomes themselves. But then we wouldn't be able to carry on this debate in your columns, would we?

PETER WEBB

Glenleigh Park Road

Modern hotel

Mendelsohn and Chermayeff's proposed plans for the area around the De La Warr Pavilion were exhibited at the re-opening of the pavilion in 2005. These plans included an hotel on the site of the present seafront pitch and putt course.

The present pitch and putt is only open for three months in the Summer. At other times the grass is not close cut for the pitch and putt holes. I doubt very much whether the fees received covers the cost of the attendant and the close mowing. I cannot envisage a more splendid site squandered on so little effect. It is not as if the site has the significance of, say, Plymouth Hoe! Those people who play with their children on this patch of grass are evidently unaware of the extent to which it is contaminated by dog fouling.

The Bexhill sea front really needs a good class of modern hotel and what better place than next to the pavilion as Mendelsohn and Chermayeff planned. Anyone can see the effect that the Cooden Beach Hotel has on that locality.

Such a hotel could be stepped back from the sea front with terraces fronting the sea. This arrangement would preserve the views of and from the pavilion. It is an unfortunate fact that the buildings at the end of Sackville Road and on Marina do not have any exclusive right in Law to the sea view that they have enjoyed for the past 50 odd years.

A hotel would add immensely to the town and to the pavilion as a destination and could be more of a catalyst for regeneration than anything else in the power of the district council to achieve. If Morecambe can do it, why not Bexhill?

E Potts Lt Cdre (Retired)

South Cliff

Much derision

After attending the Town Forum meeting in Little Common last week, I got the feeling it was good job that the meeting was not held in a brewery as the organisers could not have ordered a round of drinks, let alone anything else!

But the main reason for my letter is the presentation made by representatives of Next Wave. They put up a screen with their proposals on and then proceeded to read out to everybody what was on the screen; I'm not sure if they thought we couldn't read, but I can assure them that most of those who attended are far too intelligent to be taken in by their words and pictures, especially when they showed their idea of what the promenade would look like. The laughter and derision that rang round the hall spoke for itself. I got the impression that they really thought that it was going to be a walkover for their proposals '“ little did they realise.

One question I would have liked to ask, it was reported that 600,000 had been spent on consultants and planners, have we not got the expertise working within Rother to draw up acceptable plans? I have an 8 year old grandson who, I am sure, could draw better pictures than they did.