Martello Developments, who have acquired some substantial pieces of land both in and on the outskirts of Rye are about to reveal the second stage of their redevelopment of the warehouse area at Rock Channel. The first stage was the construction of five very large (and expensive) town houses on the bank of the river and adjacent to Strand Quay together with the re-alignment of the riverside path so that at high spring tides it is likely to be a submarine path.
The next stage is to be the construction of an arts centre on the site - so far as we understand at present - of the old auction rooms, and an artists impression is shown above. It is certainly an impressive-looking structure although it is difficult to judge the scale of it from the drawing.
At the moment, although the town has a few excellent art galleries, the performing arts often have to put up with locations which, owing to size, acoustics or other factors are not always the most suitable and a state of the art centre designed for all the arts could be an asset and draw in even bigger names than we sometimes have at the moment.
There is to be a public consultation on this and the site to be renamed Bridge Point Studios will be open for inspection of the plan and discussion with the developers on Saturday September 22 from 10am to 4pm.
The same company also own the old garage and pine warehouse site on New Winchelsea Road, where several attempts to build have been turned down by the planners, and have recently bought land on the South bank of the Tillingham opposite Rock Channel. A number of years ago there was an attempt to put a marina here, although we are now told that it has been bought with altruistic intentions of keeping it as open land.
