Hands off the High Weald

THERE are few parts of England as vulnerable as Kent and Sussex. The routes from London to the Continent fan out across these two counties and motorways and arterial roads have destroyed many of the hidden places that 50 years ago were such a delight. Businesses and seaside homes jostle for ever-shrinking open space along the Thames to Dover and then on to Southampton. HS1 has made Thanet increasingly attractive to the commuter and the Covid-driven exodus from London has given even more impetus to the Government’s demand for tens of thousands more houses. Thus, what were once rural areas have become dormitories for the capital.

Yet there are still some wonderfully attractive wild places and none more than the stunning scenery of the High Weald. Despite the nearness of the M23 and the heavy traffic it carries, this is a place of real repose where ancient woodlands harbour rare birds and mammals and the uninterrupted habitat provides shelter and protection for otherwise threatened wildlife.

The special nature of this whole Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and of Oldhouse Warren in particular, is such that many have believed it far too prized to be threatened with development. So much so that, when Center Parcs arrived with a scheme to spend up to £350 million in creating a holiday village in the forest, people thought it would soon realise that it wouldn’t wash and go and look elsewhere.

Not a bit of it. Here we are six months later and Center Parcs is still motoring on, determined to tear into the woodland and populate it with chalets, restaurants and playgrounds. The company admits that such a development would mean the loss of what it is pleased to call ‘a few trees’, but it claims that the main body of the development would not mean large-scale felling or the destruction of ancient woodland.

That is not the view of any of the organisations that have known the area for many years. When, this month, they saw that the holiday company proposed to continue its invasion undeterred, the Sussex Ornithological Society, the RSPB, CPRE, the Sussex Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust all combined to demand that Center Parcs think again. After all, this is a specially monitored site where we find the goshawk, marsh tit and tiny firecrest—all among the birds on the Red List of endangered species. They flourish here because it is part of the wider Worth Forest, which was a hunting ground in medieval times and has been protected ever since.

What, then, does Center Parcs think it is doing? Surely it has read the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to protect Britain’s natural heritage? Has it missed the recent passing of the Environment Act, which further protects sites such as this?

Did the COP26 summit pass it by with its clear statement that the protection of biodiversity is essential if we are to stop disastrous global heating? Doesn’t it know that we are planting trees not cutting them down? Or is the lure of profit so great that it has missed all those things?

Well, let Agromenes give it a bit of business advice. I’d back down now, when there won’t be too much loss of face or money, because this is one planning permission it isn’t going to get. Mid-sussex Council is no pushover and the new legislation will make it even more certain to say no.

Any attempt to fight it out will give Center Parcs a bloody nose and damage the business’s reputation. Don’t squander time and shareholders’ money. Pull out now.

Oldhouse Warren is a monitored site where we find the goshawk, marsh tit and tiny firecrest