‘Historic landscape of Low Weald at risk of destruction’
CPRE says Low Weald is ‘fair game’ to developers as councils are forced to release rural sites for building
The historic landscapes of the entire Sussex Low Weald are at risk of destruction, according to a warning issued by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Sussex.
The Low Weald is a vast belt of unprotected countryside stretching 60 miles across the heart of Sussex.
It includes the sources of both the Rivers Arun and Adur, together with thousands of acres of ancient woodlands, hedgerows and river meadows - home to a large percentage of Sussex’s rarest species. It also makes up the iconic views from the South Downs National Park and the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
However, the CPRE says that under existing planning laws the Low Weald is ‘fair game to speculative developers who are vying to make fat profits from building deep in the Sussex countryside’.
CPRE believes that this pressure has now become so severe that it is putting the entire landscape at risk.
“Sussex councils are being forced to release more and more rural sites for development due to a planning process which has become unfairly rigged in favour of the house builders,” says CPRE Sussex’s Dr Roger Smith, from Itchingfield.
“The key issue is that developers will not build more houses than can be sold at a profit which is acceptable to them. As stated in a House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee report in 2017, they are more likely ‘to build more slowly to maintain prices’.
“The Government is then wrongly blaming local councils when they fail to meet housing targets due to these slow build rates and encouraging developers to seek planning permissions for sites that have not been allocated in District plans.
‘‘Government policies also encourage these house builders to go to appeal when councils refuse applications to build on unallocated sites. This is a terrible and potentially catastrophic situation for unprotected rural areas like the Sussex Low Weald.”
The CPRE says one such speculative developer is Mayfield Market Towns (MMT), a London property company which has spent the past five years lobbying for a 10,000 home new town to be built in the heart of the Low Weald near the village of Henfield.
The CPRE says the area is typical of unspoilt rural Sussex – a patchwork of meadows, woodlands and ancient hedgerows. It is home to dozens of protected and listed species including Nightingales, Barn Owls, Great Crested Newts, rare butterflies and bats.
“An initial scoping survey has shown this to be an under-recorded area of Sussex with the potential to support significant numbers of protected species from all the major groups,” says Wildlife Splash ecologist, Jackie Thompson. “Mitigation on such a large scale would be extremely problematical and realistically, impossible.”
The Low Weald is not only rich in wildlife; it is also the iconic view from a number of protected beauty spots along the South Downs. Perhaps the most famous of these is the view from Devils Dyke – described by John Constable as, “The grandest view in the world”.
However, the CPRE says the view is now threatened to the east by the expansion of Burgess Hill, to the west by further development around Henfield and directly to the north by the MMT proposal. For more details visit:
https://www.southdowns. gov.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2015/11/L11-Hillfortat-Devils-Dyke.pdf
CPRE Sussex is warning that this pressure is likely to reach boiling point following recent technical changes to government planning policy.
These changes are likely to require a new wave of green field building across the county – particularly in the Low Weald which has no statutory protection. This could include a number of unsuitable proposals in the countryside.
“Horsham District Council is currently undergoing a statutory review of its local plan,” explains Dr Smith. “We are expecting this review to be subject to a new method for calculating housing targets which uses out of date figures from 2014 to artificially raise the numbers. Under these calculations Horsham is likely to find itself short of sites and will effectively lose control of where the houses go.
“Mayfield Market Towns has lost no time in taking advantage of this situation and has already paid Horsham council a large sum of money to sign a planning agreement, called a Planning Performance Agreement, which commits the council to consider the proposal. This is a shocking situation given the extreme unsuitability of the site.”
A Horsham District Council spokesperson said: “The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (the CPRE) raises its concerns regarding the Government’s approach to try and increase levels of house building nationally and pressures for new development in the countryside, beyond those areas of statutory protection such as National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
“In practice, we agree that the levels of new house building proposed by the Government are challenging, but like all councils we are tasked by Government to plan for the levels of new homes the local area needs.
‘‘A proportion of those new homes will continue to be provided in our existing urban areas by making better use of previously developed (brownfield) land, but as we are all aware, land available for new housing in our urban areas is also a finite resource, so inevitably, some of the development we need to plan for will need to be found by using greenfield land.
“Like all councils, when we review our Local Plan, we will look very carefully at all the land we have available before choosing the best sites to bring forward and we will always seek to protect wildlife habitats and our most valued countryside, as well as taking into account all other planning considerations we need to.
“In January this year, the Council published an updated list of all the land it was aware of that it would need to look at when looking afresh at its Local Plan, as it is statutorily required to do. Mayfield Market Towns was promoted to the Council’s previous Local Plan process prior to 2015 and continues to be promoted to the Council.
‘‘However, it is only one of many sites promoted to the Council which are shown in the list of sites currently considered to be available and whose suitability for development, needs to be assessed as part of the Local Plan preparation process.
“The CPRE also refers to the use of planning performance agreements (PPAs). A PPA is a normal part of the planning process for large or complex proposals and is entered into on a without prejudice basis.
This is a potentially catastrophic situation for unprotected rural areas
DR ROGER SMITH CPRE Sussex
‘‘This means that entering into a PPA does not give a guarantee of planning permission nor its allocation for development in a local plan. The PPA fee, covers the cost of this work and is payable whether or not the site comes forward as part of the Local Plan Preferred Strategy, which is due to be published for consultation in autumn 2019.”
Mid Sussex District Council’s District Plan was adopted in 2018 thereby restricting any speculative development in Mid Sussex, the council has pointed out.
In light of this the council indicated that it would not be responding to the CPRE comments.
More information at https://www.westsussex. gov.uk/media/1758/lds_ lowweald.pdf