Ground development

That's what  Kent  CCC rather arrogantly thought!

But thankfully the Cromwell Rd office units are discreet and unobtrusive and don't offend the neighbours - unlike Kent's  proposal for a monstrously inappropriate old people's home that butts unaccoptably close to the playing area and has the architectural subtelty of the Long Kesh H-Blocks. It would have fundamentally destroyed the character of the ground forever and the totally inappropriate  nature of the development provoked justifiable protests from just about every resident's organisation and conservation group in Canterbury, not to mention many of the county club's  own members.

 Those who currently run the Kent county club will not see it like this , but Kent CCC has had a very lucky escape and the majority of its members - who still theoretically 'own' the club and voted for a quite different and far less offensive project back in 2008/9 -  should be hugely grateful to the city council for blocking such wanton destruction. At least one  voice is now advocating an appeal to the Secretary of State; hopefully if they go down that route, the appeal will have little chance of success.

The Sussex application makes much financial sense if the intention is  to rent out the units and therefore derive an annual income, unlike the doomed Kent plan, which  proposed selling  off prime real estate and destroying the ground forever in return for  a short-term one-off cash injection that wouldn't even cover the playing budget for a single season.

This is the sensible way to go, creating year-on-year income streams rather than flogging off the family silver until there are no tangible assets left to strip.

That was simple, swift and straightforward in comparison to Kent's nightmarish experience which has so far dragged on for two years and will go on for another year if it goes to appeal.

Planning is a process rather than merely a decision, and if you handle that process properly - the kind of extensive consultation which resulted in design changes, as outlined by Jim above - then the final decision becomes a formality.

In the Kent case, there were plenty of objections to the size and scale of the development by local resident groups but they all seem to have been ignored and not to have resulted in any changes to the original design.

Well done Sussex.

Thank you, flashblade. I always like to see the detail, it is where the devil usually resides.

As I walked around the new development in the north east corner of the ground on Sunday, it struck me that this has significantly reduced the ground capacity in this area. This is only likely to be an issue for T20 matches, but the area available to spectators has been considerably reduced; there used to be a large crowd in this area. I assume therefore that the overall ground capacity has been reduced, which will reduce the potential income from our sell-out T20 evenings. It would be interesting to hear from someone at the club what the reduction in ground capacity is likely to be. Thanks in advance.

This from the original Sussex newspage, and quoted by jim "As a by-product of the investment in improving the playing area, the land adjacent to the north-east corner that is occupied by spectators has now been ‘banked’ to a greater extent, This should offer a better view of the playing area for supporters, particularly those who enjoy sitting on deckchairs at the Cromwell Road End. There will not be a reduction in ground capacity due to this proposed development."

unofficialsussexccc.freeforums.net/post/6290/threadlink

I will move this post to the same thread and perhaps jim can expand on the earlier statement.,