Item 5 - Fern Road, St Leonards - East Sussex County Council

Bexhill, which is approximately five miles away and not within the identified
neighbourhood.
4.65 Mr Ryan Al-Hasso 56 is in business with his brother, Omar Al-Hasso. He first
came to know the Land in 2007 when his brother was considering purchasing a parcel
of it. He visited the Land around four or five times, when he walked all over the Land
on both sides of Fern Road, and has driven past it on at least 20 occasions. He did not
recall seeing anyone on the Land on any of those occasions nor any of the claimed
activities being carried out, although he acknowledged that he was not specifically
focused upon whether anyone was using it. He took photographs of the parcel of the
Land his brother was acquiring on 28 January 2008, taken within working hours on a
working day. There is no one shown on the photographs. His particular interest was in
drainage, and he noted that the East Side was very soggy.
4.66 Miss Jenna Burrell 57 is an Accounts Assistant for The Park Lane Group
which she has worked for since May 2007. She has never lived in the neighbourhood.
Between 5 March 2009 and 8 April 2009, she was involved in a photographic survey
of the Land on behalf of the Company. She was requested to take photographs at
hourly intervals throughout the day of as much of the Land as possible for the purpose
of ascertaining whether anyone was using the Land. She was told to take two
photographs on each visit, namely one of the East Side and one of the West Side. She
duly attended the site on 38 occasions between those dates during the hours of 8am
and 5pm Monday to Saturday for approximately three to five minutes on each visit.
Two of her visits were on a Saturday. She drove to the area, took the photograph, and
then drove off to the office, making it around a 15 minute round trip, namely 5
minutes there, 5 minutes on site and 5 minutes back. She did not wait until there was
no one on the Land before she took a photograph. Some of the photographs were
taken from in the car, and some were taken whilst the car was moving although for
the majority of the photographs they stopped. She referred to the photographs she had
taken. She provided the comments on them relating to who was seen and the weather
conditions by orally giving them to Sarah Warburton as soon as she returned to the
office. Sarah then uploaded the photographs straight away and inserted the comments
on them. The comments reflected what she had seen. She recalled occasionally seeing
people on the footway or on the footpaths across the Land but not on the grassed area,
and on the majority of occasions she did not see anyone in the area at all. If anyone
had been on the Land at the time, she would have ensured they had been shown in the
photograph.
4.67 Mr Scott Baker 58 has provided consultancy services to The Park Lane Group
for ten years. He is also a Director of and Shareholder in Witrose Developments
Limited, one of the Objectors. He has been familiar with the Land since Spring 2006
since when he has visited the Land on numerous occasions. During all those visits, he
has only seen people using the footpath and the footways along Fern Road. He was
asked by Mr Beswick to undertake a photographic survey of the Land in 2009 by
having photographs of the Land taken at regular times which he arranged and he
compiled a rota system. The intention was to try to take a photograph on the hour
every hour. He instructed a number of people to take one photograph of each side of
56 His witness statement is at OB3 page 549.
57 Her witness statement is at OB3 page 659.
58 His witness statement is at OB3 page 564
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