Let new homes at affordable rates

The news has today been leaked that Curtin & Co consultants to a large developer is examining the possibilities of acquiring the land West of Hare farm and South of Stubbs lane in Brede for the construction of 350 mixed houses and bungalows, with the possibility of another 150 on land North of Pottery Lane at Cackle Street.

They will be seeking outline planning and have the full blessing of the Minister of State for Housing, the Rt Hon James Brokenshire, as the extra 500 dwellings would assist in bringing Rother District Council’s housing quota nearer to its 2019 target. Residents have formed the “Cackle and Brede Group” encouraged vociferously by their local councillor.

Now stop, calm down, mop your brow, ... that was all a “could happen”, but know you all know how the residents in Little Common and Cooden feel about totally inappropriate housing on totally inappropriate sites.

Already declared as unsuitable for development by a council now so confused it’s trying double and triple ‘U’ turns to find itself.

The big joke of any such plans, “there will be affordable homes”! Affordable to who?

It has recently been published in the Spectator that the lowest paid full time workers in the country are here in Bexhill/Rother.

Affordable homes here should be built for the council to let at affordable rents, not for Housing Associations, unless they let at affordable rents too.

Currently a monthly mortgage repayment on an affordable home is less than the current rents being charged, yet the current low wage prohibits them getting a mortgage on a house, but allows them to pay much more just to live in it. It’s a disease called ‘investors profit’!

Next we should consider the huge areas being made available, Beeching Road, Rosewood Park, Little Common, North and South Access Road, (sorry Haven Brook Avenue), for business and light industrial units, which now with a government grant is to double in the Haven Brook area.

Where is the skilled labour force for all this regeneration?

There isn’t enough by any stroke of the imagination locally, so it means that any firms moving in will also bring or at least encourage their own from outside. No doubt these will find the affordable housing being built alongside well within their grasp being much cheaper than where they came from.

The biggest snag to all this is that no sensible firms are going to move to an area where the traffic and infrastructure problems are completely ignored by an archaic and ineffectual council who ignore everyone. It’s time for them to go. How about May 2019!