New site sought for seafront hotel

Mr Shaw assured concerned audience members at a packed Bexhill Town forum that competition-winning plans put forward by ABK architects were far from the 'be all and end all' and a 'compromise solution' was being sought.

And Rother leader Graham Gubby revealed a meeting had been set up between Sea Space and the new freeholders of the Skoda garage and opposite buildings at the bottom of Sackville Road to look into the possibility of switching all of part of the scheme to that site.

But the message from protesters was: "We're not falling for that one."

Cllr Gubby told the Pebsham meeting: "If we can find a seafront site other than the Metropole that satisfies Sea Space and the Hastings and Bexhill Task Force's original competition brief as regards employment and economic potential and is publicly popular then I will support it wholeheartedly. It's early days but of course we are willing to look at sites like that at the bottom of Sackville Road. The Metropole site is not set in stone. Far from it."

Mr Shaw encouraged members of the public not to reject the plans outright but work towards compromise and finding the right solution for Bexhill.

He said: "If it's the prevailing view that no development takes place on Bexhill seafront then we will lose the government investment and it will go elsewhere."

Mr Shaw added that any seafront office, hotel, residential and retail development, be it on the Metropole site or not, would need to be considerable. He added: "We could do a bit here and a bit there and a bit somewhere else, but the more diluted the less economically effective, and the less likely we will be able to convince private investors to come along with us, which is crucial.

"I'm sure we will end up with a compromise, but the gamble is 'will the investors go in for it unless the development is significant?'"

Mr Shaw said the time for protests and petitions was over, saying Bexhill needed to grasp what is the biggest opportunity open to the town for decades.

He added: "Two years ago nobody was interested in this town. Now we have major architects competing with each other, government regeneration cash coming in and interest from private investors. We now have a healthy debate and the spirit should not be about what we don't agree with but finding common ground."

Those words failed to reassure several members of the Save Our Seafront SOS action group at the meeting.

Sheila Lee said: "We now have approaching 10,000 signatures. Find a suitable site and we will support it but we do not want a building on our putting green."

Several others spoke in a similar vein and were met with loud applause.

SOS chairman John Lee added: "We're being told not to worry too much about that site and that there will be a compromise and it won't be built there but I think it would be dangerous for us to fall for that.

"The architects are pressing ahead with designs for that hotel complex so our fight goes on."

A major Observer survey to which 900 people responded was overwhelming against the idea of a new building on the Metropole site.