CPRE Sussex fights to protect High Weald from more major development

Mid Sussex District Council wants to allow over 1,000 more houses to be built on three sites in Slaugham parish. All the sites are within the High Weald National Landscape which planning laws seek to protect from major development.  CPRE Sussex says that should not be allowed.

The new developments are intended principally to provide additional housing to support Crawley and Brighton Councils, neither of which can meet their own Government-imposed housing supply targets.

The sites involved are in Handcross and Pease Pottage.  These villages already face 750 home developments.  The three additional sites would be allocated for housing as part of modifications requested by the Planning Inspector examining Mid Sussex District Council’s draft new District Plan that will govern how much new building is to be supported in Mid Sussex and where it should go.

As now proposed by Mid Sussex District Council, the Plan will set a housing requirement of 24,071 new homes by 2040, 19,243 homes to satisfy Mid Sussex’s own local housing needs, and the rest to alleviate the unmet needs of Crawley and Brighton.

CPRE Sussex is asking the Planning Inspector to accept that the three major sites in Slaugham Parish are a step too far and should not be used: being within the High Weald National Landscape, one of the country’s most important landscapes whose natural beauty is designated by statute for conservation, planning rules generally prohibit large scale development other than in exceptional circumstances.

A CPRE Sussex planning volunteer Michael Brown said: ‘Our National Landscapes are England’s most precious landscape heritage, valued by all for their beauty, the opportunity they provide to people to get out into the open, and for their economic benefits: tourism, farming etc.  They are not warehouses of future building sites.  This is the wrong place to create three new housing estates.’

The Planning Inspector will be considering submissions in respect of this and other proposed modifications to Mid Sussex District Council’s new Plan in the coming weeks.

See further information: www.midsussex.gov.uk/planning-building/mid-sussex-district-plan/district-plan-review-examination/

Read CPRE Sussex’s full submission to the Planning Inspector: CPRE Sussex response-Mid Sussex District Plan