Amex Area Neighbourhood Forum (Who are they?)

From a fierce campaign for a different kind of development to a thriving community association, Amex Area Neighbourhood Forum is fast evolving.

Plans submitted for the redevelopment of the former Amex House site on Edward Street were approved by the planning committee on July 18th.  The developer, First Base, will deliver 160,000 sq feet of commercial space and 135 luxury apartments.  It proposes to deliver 33 flats defined as ‘affordable homes’ comprising of 18 socially rented homes and 15 shared ownership homes.  

Despite our campaign attempts for a better outcome (in terms of scale and design, usable green space and more and genuinely affordable homes) our Council’s approval has not dampened our spirit.  We are campaigning on numerous other local issues and making progress on a number of resident-led projects including feeding in a range of neighbourhood concerns to the councils Neighbourhood Action Plan for the Queens Park area.  On top of this, after 2018s rocky ride, we are engaged in bridge building with First Base who show themselves to be receptive to past criticisms, willing to listen to local people and, for 2019 onward, to positively engage-in and support a number of community initiatives. In many ways our anger entirely is directed at BHCC planning and the government which enables (via the National Planning Policy Framework) any large scale planning proposals to pass with little or no scrutiny so long as an authority cannot demonstrate a 5 year housing land supply.  Despite producing alternative plans for the Amex site that exceeded all City Plan targets (it even had a Green Bridge across Edward Street for god sake!) we were never going to win this one.  For more on any of the above contact us via Facebook ‘Amex Area Neighbourhood Action Forum’ and look out for meeting dates (our meetings in the basement of the wonderful Jane Bom Bane’s cafe break the mould – never boring!)