Letters: Developer ignoring local knowledge on Lymington police station site

SIR – Churchill Retirement Living are determined to plough ahead with the development on the old police station despite an overwhelming desire by local people that the site should be allocated to social housing (A&T, 17th February).

Churchill have totally ignored the local knowledge of the Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour parties, local district councillors, estate agents who can’t sell these properties, the town council, the Lymington Society and over 1,400 people who signed a petition against.

Local opinion appears to mean nothing to Churchill.

The chief executive of Churchill, Spencer McCarthy, has offered a list of reasons why they should build these unwanted retirement flats; none of them based on any credible evidence.

I think Churchill are also negotiating a lower price for the site to the owners, Hampshire police. Why are our local councillors not pushing hard to purchase the site for social housing or flats for key workers?

Mr McCarthy has told us that they have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in planning this development. That’s part of their business risk, not a concern for local people.

He claims that by building retirement flats in Lymington, it will free up the market as it will attract local “downsizers”. He has absolutely no evidence to back this up. What makes him think that people from outside the area will not be attracted to move to Lymington?

Mr McCarthy claims that retirement flats are the most effective form of development, generating the local economy, creating local jobs and increasing high street spend.

Where is the evidence for this? What jobs will be created with this development? Why are older people more likely to spend money than families and working people?

Let’s be clear: in face of overwhelming opposition to this proposal based on strong evidence, for Churchill the bottom line is their profit margin.

What can be done? Our local councillors should be working hard to secure the site in negotiation with the police commissioner.

Councillors should also call for a public meeting with Churchill so that they can see the depth of feeling there is against this development.

Jerry Weber,

Address supplied

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SIR – I read with interest that according to the boss of Churchill Retirement Living, more facilities for the elderly are needed in Lymington (A&T, 17th February).

The development of Knights Lodge in Lymington is still offering a £15,000 cashback to new buyers – that tells me demand is poor.

Lymington needs more affordable homes.

Adrian White,

Lymington

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SIR – So the community has been wrong all this time!

Your 17th February edition suggests that Churchill Retirement Living’s ambition to build retirement flats on the former police station site is motivated by a desire to boost the local housing market by “freeing up under-occupied properties for families, younger people, first-time buyers and key workers”.

So all a nurse or teacher needs to do is buy the four-bedroomed house vacated when someone moves into yet another retirement flat on the town.

Obviously the fact that the older property will probably be in a distant part of the country, and priced at many times a key worker’s mortgage potential is something that can easily be overcome.

And there we were thinking this was just one more attempt by property developers to get their corporate snout even deeper into the Lymington economy...

A casual look at the Rightmove property website shows that there are currently around 180 properties for sale in Lymington. Including the almost complete Pegasus Gate development, there are 84 retirement properties available.

And yet we are being told that there is both an urgent need for even more of these kinds of flats, and that they are “the most effective form of residential development for generating local economic growth, creating local jobs, and increasing high street spend”.

Strangely, boosting the corporate profits of their developers by destabilising the age profile of the town doesn’t get a mention...

The fact is that there will always be a large number of these properties continually coming back onto the market to meet demand. This is because, given the age of the buyers, many of them soon move on into care homes as their needs increase, or the flats are put up for sale when they die.

Companies exist to increase the wealth of their shareholders. Fair enough. But please could they respect our intelligence sufficiently to admit that this is their main motivation, rather than trying to tell us that it’s actually for the overall good of our town?

Chris Elliott,

Lymington