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CPRE Sussex submits further statements on Mid Sussex District Local Plan
CPRE Sussex will argue for the development of a Low Weald preservation and development strategy at the October Public Examination Stage 1 hearings.
CPRE Sussex is preparing its case ahead of the start of the new Mid Sussex District Council (MSDC) draft District Plan’s public examination hearings that open on 22 October at the Council’s Haywards Heath offices.
One main focus of our concerns about the plan is the scale of the housing that they want to see developed on large rural sites in the Low Weald (the one rural area within the District that is outside the constraints of the High Weald National Landscape (formerly AONB) and Ashdown Forest.
Our submissions argue that
– there needs to be a comprehensive land use policy covering the Low Weald (ideally developed holistically in collaboration with other districts that encompass the Low Weald). That policy needs to recognise its high ecological, landscape and natural capital value and identify areas to be protected for nature management recovery, agriculture etc. The policy also needs to identify which parts of the Low Weald are sustainable locations for housing given the area’s rural character and importance, as well as its role as a buffer between the South Downs and the urbanisation towards London from Gatwick and Crawley northwards.
– in the absence of a Low Weald policy and of evidence as to where, and what kinds of, development in the area would be sustainable, there is no justification for MSDC’s policy of large scale allocations within the Low Weald. As it stands, the draft Plan just sees the Low Weald as a convenient undesignated dumping ground for mass housing that cannot be sited within the designated High Weald. There is no evidence-supported land use strategy that supports this as the best and most sustainable option for new mass housing. It isn’t!
– the draft Plan’s ambition of creating a self-sustaining 20 minute neighbourhood out of a 2,000 home development site at Sayers Common is wholly unrealistic and undeliverable;
– the only currently justified spatial strategy for the Plan would involve focussing more development within and around the main urban centres, if necessarily densifying development there (which is what the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) calls for) rather than building (at low densities) on isolated rural sites; and
– the Plan’s housing target has to recognise that development within the District is constrained by environmental and infrastructure considerations and the absence of a Low Weald policy; by the absence of evidence as to the sustainability of development within the Low Weald; and also by whatever practical limits there may be as to the extent to which larger scale additional development is achievable within and around the main urban centres.
Read our latest submissions to the Planning Inspector :
