No word yet on third site for housing in big project

A water colour of what the sports village might look like, showing the main cricket ground with the football stadium and sports hall in the background.

Combe Valley Sports Village, as the project has been named (although that’s not necessarily what the venue would be called if it gets council approval), would be situated on the middle two tiers of the existing Bexhill Road playing fields.

The exciting development - potentially the biggest sporting venture Hastings and St Leonards has ever seen - would give Hastings United Football Club a 3,000 capacity stadium, and a new home for Hastings Priory Cricket Club and South Saxons Hockey Club.

The project would be financed by a quality residential development at The Pilot Field - Hastings United’s present home - plus a residential development at Horntye Park Sports Complex - where South Saxons and Hastings Priory are currently based - and on a third site.

Asked when the location of the third site for residential development might be announced, Hastings United director Dave Nessling said: “I would think we will release that some time in December maybe.

“We’re going to start to engage with groups, organisations, residents associations and local councillors.

“The planning pre-application will go in at the end of the second week of December, and we still aim to have the overall planning application in at the end of January or early February.

“All in all it’s looking very positive; we’ve not had a lot of adverse reaction. The club fully accepts there’s going to be some people, especially in The Pilot Field area, that may be against it, but it’s up to us to convince them of the quality of the housing and that there will be other things to come out of it to improve community facilities.

“When we had the meeting with supporters (on November 10), the residents shouldn’t think it was their meeting because it wasn’t, but they were welcome. We will have another meeting with residents in all three areas.”

A Hastings Borough Council spokesman said: “We know there’s lots of work being done by the promoters and we look forward to receiving more detail in the near future.”

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