School nursery move granted despite parking concerns

Residents have spoken out against Battle Abbey School’s proposal to move its nursery from Penland Road to Hastings Road – with 15 letters of objection and a 20-signature strong petition concerned over parking problems at the new nursery site.

But Rother District Council planning committee voted with the council officers’ recommendations to grant permission for the plans on Thursday evening (Thursday 25).

This, the committee decided, would however be subject to ‘successful negotiation to achieve a revised setting of the new building in a position respecting both the trees to be retained and the amenities of adjoining residents’.

The independent school plans to close the current nursery and move it to its prep school site.

Members of the public had argued the new nursery, which will accommodate 65 children, would exacerbate existing parking problems in the area.

But a spokesperson for Battle Abbey said the prep school would expand its current seven parking spaces to 22, while adding that a number of pre-school children would be brought to the site by minibus.

She told the Hastings Observer: “We are trying to ease parking as we see it is difficult for parents.”