Backing for flint wall demolition

Lewes Football Club, which uses the Pan and plans to expand its facilities, wants to take the wall down and partly re-construct it with new emergency access and entry gates.

But local historians and conservationists say it originally formed the eastern boundary of the medieval Priory of St Pancras and contained imported stone from the Priory.

Now a compromise seems to have been reached.

At a Lewes Town Council planning committee meeting on Tuesday members recommended permission be granted for the wall's demolition to provide emergency access and gates.

Council members agreed with the Friends of Lewes that existing stones should be re-used in the wall's part-reconstruction to a high standard and that every effort should be made to ensure that floodlighting did not cause a hazard to passing motorists.

The matter will now go before Lewes District Council, the planning authority, which is expected to grant permission.

The plans also include the construction of a spectators' viewing terrace within the Dripping Pan.