The Oval Chalet petition
Protect this seafront land from careless development
Please sign the petition at Copperfields, Oxford Street Books or The Wine Room in Tankerton.
The council owned Oval Chalet land (opposite Reeves Beach) has been sold in a closed sale with no prior public consultation. The local plan states this and adjoining land must contain 'public open space' but the plan offered by the purchaser is for dense buildings with a small public space outside a kiosk.
Please support this petition to Canterbury City Council. The petition can be found at Copperfields at 93 High Street Whitstable, Oxford Street Books at 20a Oxford Street or The Wine Room, 104 Tankerton Road.
The petition text is as follows:
We, the undersigned, petition the Leader of Canterbury Council to call for the relevant Committee of the Council to formally review the decision of the Executive, taken in closed session on 11 December 2014, to enter into a conditional contract to dispose of the Oval Chalet Site in Whitstable to Sea Street Developments Ltd to enable the new Council to:
1. Satisfy itself that statutory best value considerations have been met in terms of the valuation and sale price of the site: given that Best Value does not relate to money alone.
2. Check that the conditionality applied to the contract reflects the spirit of:
a) the undertaking given about its use as public open space when the ownership was originally transferred to the predecessor local authority.
b) the multiple requests by residents to the Council, over many years, for action to be taken to bring the land back into the public realm.
3.Consider the wish of the petitioners and wider local community for public consultation on the future of the site to take place now separately from, and ahead of, the planning process and preferably before pre-application discussions with the prospective developer have been concluded.
4.Consider a request from the petitioners that, should contractual obligations prohibit other options from being pursued, further urgent discussion should take place with the prospective developer, before a planning application is submitted, to restrict the scheme to one which would meet the design principles for this site as outlined in the Horsebridge Development Study (which covers the Oval site) and which accords with the Appraisal of the Whitstable Town Conservation Area 2010.