Daedalus Waterfront
Daedalus Development Company wrote:

We would like to thank Lee Residents for your patience and support while we worked through the legal paperwork for planning last year. We have been working hard in the background and, with the support of some passionate members of the community in Lee, we will soon be able to share more specific details and timings of works on site.

This will include details of initial Infrastructure works starting on site next month.   Application 23/00061/OUT, is applying in principle to:

• Demolition of some existing buildings 94, 96 and 100
• The hangar opposite Daedalus Village, Esmond Hanger, has already received approval for Demolition and the site has been cleared
• Erection of 14,842 sq.mtrs employment and industrial floorspace
• Conversion of existing buildings to form 30 dwellings
• 102 residential dwellings with the provision of associated vehicular and pedestrian accesses, car parking, hard and soft landscaping, tree works, open space and associated infrastructure
• 214 dwellings in new and converted buildings, including up to 48 retirement/care apartments
• 17,553 sq.mtr of commercial floorspace to provide a range of uses including employment and industrial, offices, food & beverage, retail and micro-brewery
• up to 7,980 sq.m hotel floorspace
• 4,485 sq.mtrs of museum floorspace
• up to 222 sq.mtrs community use floorspace (use class f2.b) and associated vehicular and pedestrian accesses, car parking, hard and soft landscaping, tree works, open space and associated infrastructure
• the realignment of Hermes Road; the formation of five bell mouth junctions; the provision of drainage and utilities infrastructure and associated works (affects listed buildings and conservation area)

The above incorporates our objectives to save and celebrate the heritage of Daedalus Waterfront, we will be sharing updated designs and a programme for our construction of Daedalus Square, restoring the Cook House and barrack buildings into new homes.  Finally, following a workshop on the future of the Hovercraft Museum the trustees have submitted their first application for funding to the Heritage Lottery Fund.  The museum is now open Saturdays and Sundays and making great progress on their plans for the future of the collection.

By the LRA. The above application is still in in the process of detailed determination, some of the demolition works have already been approved in advance, so the full application approval should be soon. We are advised there should be more news soon and the Waterfront website has an update section and are happy to answer questions at info@daedaluswaterfront.co.uk

Bristow’s UK National Search and Rescue Training Centre The steelwork can be seen rising from Daedalus Airfield at the back of the CEMAST Collage, where Fareham Borough Council have approved (in planning application P/23/1155/FP) for.  The tall structure will allow simulated helicopter rescue training and a range of facilities to train personnel in the crucial skills required for emergency rescues.  Access will be from Daedalus Drive and the site will include parking and landscaping for what is claimed will be a world class training facility.

Daedalus Airfield East of Control Tower (24/00311/FULL) is where the Lee-on-the-Solent and Stubbington RNA Branch have been approved to install a commemorative stone in a small maintained enclosure. This is to remember the service and civilian personnel who served, fought and in some cases died serving HMS Daedalus over the course of its history.

Significant Lee Planning applications that may be of interest.

139-141 High Street Lee on the Solent the former Launderette site but now a cleared site

LRA planning team have considered the revised planning application 24/00385/FULL, resubmitted as the prior, second application on this site was refused as being over height and being out of character in the Pier Street Conservation Area. The Area Appraisal reports this area as fundamental to the Pier Street Conservation Area and at the centre of the town, thus any new build must fit the “inward and outward scene”(a conservation requirement).  While the LRA was not enamoured with the application, as the third story has just been crammed into the roof space and the ridge line lowered just enough so not to stand above the surrounding buildings. Equally it has no parking provisions for the residents. Nonetheless it would replace the ugly cleared site on our high street and the frontage is a small shop. In support of community opinion the planning team ignored all the valid Conservation and Local Plan objections saying “nonetheless it would be better for the town than the current demolition scar on the High Street as well as meeting the often-conflicting requirements to sustain the retail vitality on the High Street, with the addition of residential accommodation, helping to meet current housing targets.”

But we did qualify our remarks, saying:

1. The extra storey [even within the roof structure] pushes the building height to the limit of acceptability. It is now only just less than the height of the original application, that was part the reason for its earlier planning refusal.
2. It is disappointing to see that there is no parking provision or formal arrangement for alternative parking provision to help meet the LP 23 requirements and the Parking SPD. Residential parking in the High Street hampers the business trade, particularly when residents abuse the proscribed parking time limitations.
3. It is recommended that the design is not changed or extended for any reason during the build process nor by any form of Variation of Condition. [in this type of building the developer often asks for an increase in height during the build process as ‘they find’ there is insufficient headroom in the upper roof accommodation (this is achieved through a Variation of Condition process and rarely refused).

 20 Chester Crescent 25/00052/FULL, this application is to convert the over large garage that has been erected in the front of the house into a separate dwelling. There is a history of prior applications for this property that have been contested.

 Browndown Former Army Camp opposite Kingfisher Caravan site.
Property developers Highwood held a public consultation at the Thorngate Halls in December about plans to redevelop Browndown Camp with 86 residences. The consultation period has now closed but the proposals can still be viewed online at: www.highwoodgroup.co.uk/browndowncamp.

 Other Local Works

 Brookers Field off Newgate Lane.  Work has now commenced for the 90 Affordable Homes by Vivid Housing, North of Brookers Field Recreation Ground with current access from Newgate Lane. Fareham lost the appeal against this development as the Planning Inspectorate wrote a long report along the lines it would have little impact on the strategic gap and Fareham had missed its housing targets anyway.  Developers soon home in on a new road giving access to easy building land, especially adjoining an existing settlement.  They also have an army of lawyers with years of experience in wriggling around weaknesses in any local plan. One hopes the temporary access from the Newgate Lane relief road, really is only in use during the site development.

 The Immigration Removal Centre at Haslar.  The justice department is converting the former Haslar Barracks that is the only significant regimental infantry barracks’ complex that survives in England from the years leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Many of the original buildings have survived on site even though the barracks has seen more recent uses. In 1864 the site was converted and partly redeveloped as an army hospital to reflect the major reforms to military hospitals and care after the Crimean War. For these reasons it is a designated as a Conservation Area.  The justice department and the military, take some account of planning rules, but with the over £100 million pounds redevelopment on site I suspect there is a lot of ‘reconfiguration’ taking place; for sure a Napoleonic Era barracks did not have its own independent back up power generation plant on site!