Our pretty seaside town has been ruined by an eyesore for a DECADE…we’ve finally won court battle to have it torn down
HOMEOWNERS in a pretty coastal town are celebrating as a seafront “eyesore” is finally torn down after a decade of complaints.
Residents in the East Sussex resort of Seaford have long been campaigning for scaffolding towering over their high street to be toppled.
The hated metal structure has been seen as a blot on the landscape since going up 11 years ago.
And the scaffolding has only now finally been dismantled after a ruling by London‘s High Court – to the relief and delight of locals.
All the scaffolding in Talland Parade must be removed by London-based firm Vision Properties, after a case brought by Lewes District Council.
Judge Mark Gidden delivered the verdict, ordering that protective coating be put on building roofs in the meantime to prevent leaks.
Jill Wilson, 82, who has lived beneath the scaffolding for a decade, was among those welcoming the ruling.
She said: “I am delighted it’s gone – I am dazed because it’s been there so long.
“It’s part of me now – it’s dug into the ribs.”
Fellow resident Neil Smith suggested the scaffolding had harmed tourism to the town – and should be a “lesson learnt” to “prevent it happening in other places”.
There have been complaints about drunks using the scaffolding as a climbing frame and noisy seagulls setting up nests.
It dates back to January 2012 when the council granted planning permission for ten self-contained flats there.
Yet the site remained largely untouched, with only the scaffolding remaining ever since.
Bob Downing, from local group Seaford Residents’ Voice which has been campaigning against the “blight”, said: “We have put a lot of time into it and we are a lot happier to see it come down.”
Yet he cautioned: “The question next is, what happens to the derelict site?
“We hope that the powers-that-be can do something.”
Lewes council launched the claim of public nuisance against the Talland Parade owners last December, asking the High Court for an injunction to remove the scaffolding.
Judges found in their favour on May 26 this year and set 5pm on Tuesday this week as the deadline for the structure to be entirely removed.
The court order also means no more scaffolding can be erected there without permission from the local authority.
Laurence O’Connor, Lewes’s council cabinet member for planning, said he was “pleased” by progress being made.
He added: “We are only at this point after the council’s painstaking legal efforts to resolve what had become an intractable problem, most notably for long-suffering residents and business-owners in Seaford.
“I am pleased that the end of this saga appears to be in sight.”
Previous complaints in Seaford have been about tourists parking caravans in front of locals’ windows, setting bins on fire and littering benches.
Seaford is 12 miles east along the coast from Brighton, which has seen its own coastal drama in recent days with a devastating blaze at a historic seafront hotel.
More “monster” scaffolding has prompted protests in the North London district of Camden, as well as outside a shocked mum’s home in Plymouth in Devon.