The post you are reporting:
Dear Kathy
So I, like others are most welcome to send our views into the DXpress - but will they be published, certainly not my views ... not one over the Community Hospital was ever published ... neither 'official' letters/press releases from the PPIF or coverage of the public hearings, where the decisions were made, and held in Maidstone.
Xpress has long since ceased to be the 'Forum of Discussion' hence, I for one no longer submit and, I guess others feel the same. This is, I suspect, a major contributory factor in the success of Paul Boland's Dover Forum. On this point, most if not all contributors to the Forum DON'T make statements that 'constitute liable.'
As for Western Heights, the DXpress coverage has been biased towards CGI ... For instance, concerning housing, Joe Public has been sold the line that the houses will be Executive style and that the occupants will help Dover to regenerate itself.
i. The occupants, if they are affluent and work in London, will do as the CGI have suggested elsewhere ... they will get in their cars and either drive to Folkestone West or Ashford and catch the train.
ii. According to the DXpress of 22.03.2012 the proposal to develop Manley House site, Whitfield, was deferred, as there is a 30% affordable housing condition (S106). This logically is also applicable to Western Height ... unless of course, the 30% affordable homes will all be built a Farthingloe, thus defeating the objective of mixed development.
iii. Next, the site is a National monument - I have quoted the English Heritage reasons given for this above but, to date, it has not been stated in the DXpress.
iv. Once a house is built at Western Heights it sets precedence and there will no stopping further developments. This was the main reason given back in 1992 - when I took a proposed housing/hotel/leisure facility to a Local Planning Inquiry - and won ... In those days, such achievements were published in the DXpress!
To appreciate the enormity of this, one only has to look at Farthingloe ... the Tunnel workers camp was given temporary planning permission, this we were assured through your paper - DXpress. Indeed, Dover District Council also assured us, but then someone wanted to develop what was a protected area and the fact that the workers camp had been on the site negated the planning protection! We are now to expect some 797 houses 30% of 797 = 239.1 affordable.
v. Finally, it is of interest that Mr DXpress - Terry Sutton - states in his book, written with Derek Leach, Our Town Dover page 11:
'One scheme that never made progress, revealed in 1969, was for the development of part of Western Heights with homes, and hotel and leisure facilities. Fortunately, the plans were rejected.'
Lorraine