save HOVE

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save HOVE
c/o P.O. Box 521,
Hove
BN3 6HY

Please send copies of your objections to saveHOVE

savehove@yahoo.co.uk

UPDATE 10th April 2006:
Click here to get the Update No. 5 PDF file.

UPDATE 1st Feb 2006:
Click here to download a petition form.

About the planned King Alfred development ...

The threat. The plea.

THE THREAT
What is it? First ask yourself, why you would choose to live in Hove. They are good reasons. They matter. They are worth hanging onto and defending as important and necessary.

THE CASE FOR HARMONY
Reasons might include the need for an environment that is not as stressful, overly challenging or physically demanding as, say, London (or even central Brighton). There are mental, physical, spiritual, aesthetic and cultural reasons way beyond the financial for why we settle where we do. It is about fit. Other reasons will include a preference for substantial, built-to-last housing, for the ambience of older, listed, and conservation grade areas with their sense of continuity with our past, and national identity. They give us the sense of timelessness, security and stability things built to last impart. For many it will be about the sea....the sky.....

Constant light, traffic noise and pollution, enervating drug or caffeine-driven, aggressive and challenging hyperactivity, all-night drinking, tension, fashionable competition and new, new, newer are bliss for some people but not needed or survivable by everyone. We are encouraged now to see much of this as norm, as proof of youthful vigour. Often it just betrays insecurity or lack of identity. Some people reading this will be defensive about any assertion that new might not automatically equate to improvement, that change is not necessarily A Good Thing just because it is activity of some sort. "Less is more," said architect Mies van der Rohe; "but God is in the details".

Choosing to live in Hove is a statement. It always has been.

How is all this under threat? Following the creation of the unitary authority which stripped Hove of its autonomy as a self-governing town there has been a fairly obvious and clench-jawed campaign to put Hove in its place as Brighton's subservient "other half". One of saveHOVE's number describes Hove as "Brighton's battered wife".

EXAMPLE
Using the excuse that it could not be adapted for disabled use, Hove was meant to lose its Carnegie-endowed listed library building. This was vigorously opposed. The library has now closed for adaptation and refurbishment until spring 2006; but Hove will not be forced to give it up. The library will not be pushed off into a windowless corner of Hove Town Hall.

There are other examples of how Hove has been bullied, intimidated and told it must become a clone of every other town in Britain -- or, at the very least, much more like its "other half": Brighton.

PLANNING DISASTER
saveHOVE supports sympathetic design and development. Sadly, it is at the level of planning that Hove is presently suffering worst. From the proposed skyscraper on the old art deco Caffyn's site to the demolition of sturdy, substantial family homes so greedy developers (and residents!) can make pots of money erecting blocks of flats, Hove is under siege. We are looking at hugely increased numbers of people living here. Densification is a government policy. Our politicians are in thrall to developers. We are in big trouble. To see the consequences of this policy, click here for Size Matters.

Since 2003, the greatest threat has been the mega-development proposed for The King Alfred. This ill-conceived project is proving to be the straw that is breaking the camel's back. This summer saveHOVE was formed. For the moment, saveHOVE is working solely on The King Alfred and offering guidance to objectors. Our seafront is in peril. Those wanting us to become another Benidorm must be stopped.

HIGH RISE HELL - Professor Geoffrey Baker's views
It is very easy to take what we have for granted. Some fail to do even that. Sometimes we need to be jolted into seeing the places we live in with freshly appreciative eyes. saveHove invites you to click here to see St. Aubyns in Hove as it is today - a classic terrace below a big sky. Then hover your mouse over the image to get the jolt. Move the mouse off the image again to see this street with awakened new eyes.

Click here next for a view along the seafront from Hove's Peace Statue to the cluster of buildings south of The Kingsway, behind which sits the current King Alfred Sports Centre. By the way, this cluster is one of the five areas (nodes) in Brighton and Hove identified as being "suitable for tall buildings" in The Gillespie Tall Buildings Study commissioned by the Council, produced and endorsed by Councillors from all parties in the autumn of 2003. The seafront per se has been identified as a corridor suitable on the side north of Kingsway as "suitable for tall buildings" (identified as over 6 storeys).

Now click here to see the devastating reality of what Planning Application no. 2005/05594 proposes to offer people driving west along the Kingsway, walking along the Promenade or enjoying the beach.

These photos and drawings were prepared in great haste (ahead of impending overseas departure) by Professor and architect Geoffrey Baker, MA, PhD. Rough, but totally correct (we apologize for any dim picture quality). They are wide context elevations which show the terrible impact this development would have on Hove's gracious and celebrated seafront "Regency ambience" (as Geoffrey describes it).

SHOCKITECTURE - Frank Gehry's world
The Frank Gehry designs (much influenced and directed by the Commission for Architecture in the Built Environment) are a celebration of the breakdown of society, of manic and chaotic values. It is loud, brash, harsh, aggressive, violent. The architectural equivalent of the nihilistic punk values of the 1970's (and today's Rap) fused with the regimented brutalist functionalism of an earlier part of the 20th Century. Visual anarchy. Thrash-metal music in a serene setting. An expression of open contempt for Hove's entire present reality: its tree-lined avenues, listed buildings, classic squares, conservation areas, quiet dignity and values. Shockitecture.

Some people are so blinkered they fail totally to appreciate the unique place which we are privileged to enjoy, and which we are still able to show to an appreciative world when it comes to our door: the tourists, business visitors, conference goers, Frank Gehry and Brad Pitt.

THE PLEA
For all Hove's citizens and all Hove's appreciative visitors to stand up and be counted, and save Hove. We can only provide the metaphorical equivalent of small-bore shot and some road maps.

What is your target? The Planning Application!

YOU HAVE TO SAVE HOVE. ALL OF YOU. TOGETHER.

The saveHove website is under construction. saveHove wants to give you as much as can possibly be provided at this time.

The site will be updated as required.

Update No. 3 will be a conservation issue, including a summary article from Geoffrey Baker, distilled from his larger essay work
written this summer
(in preparation for production as a CDRom).

Website donated by our friends (and Hove's concerned neighbours) at www.brightonbeautiful.com