Ensuring the continued sustainability of the larger rural villages, especially the Rural Service Centres, such as Robertsbridge, is central to maintaining provision of ready access from the rural parts of the District to employment opportunities, services and the facilities required for day-to-day living and contributing to reducing the need to travel so often to the higher order towns.

Equally, permitting modest additional development in the Rural Service Centres will contribute to keeping them viable and internally sustainable, supporting local employment, shops, services and community facilities.

In the case of Robertsbridge it is considered that the potential of the village to accommodate additional development is not being fully utilised in the draft Core Strategy.