PROPOSAL UNSOUND.

The rural charm of Robertsbridge will be diminished where new houses are built on high visibility, farmed, greenfield sites in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and congestion will increase further, with a greater risk of road accidents. If 155 new houses are built (an increase of 36 on the previous proposal of 119), there will have been an increase of over 40% in the number of houses and population in Robertsbridge since 1991. The proposed figure therefore fails the key test in para 6.7.7 of RDC's July 2013 Sustainability Appraisal.

The building of further houses would increase the potential risk of flooding in Robertsbridge through lower absorption rates and more rapid run-off.The proposal does not therefore meet the requirements of Objective 12 for Rural Villages set out in the July 2013 Sustainability Appraisal. There were bad floods in the village in 2000 and although new defences were built, these were geared to a 100 year event, whereas the current practice is to protect against a 200 year event.

PROPOSAL NOT LEGALLY COMPLIANT.

The Sustainable Community Strategy for Rother identifies that it is a priority to protect our natural environments, including farmed, greenfield sites (Chptr 1) and identifies a vision of reducing "the impact of traffic on people and places". There are already traffic jams in Robertsbridge. The proposals are not consistent with these policies.

A further vision identified in this document, is to ensure that people are confident of their safety and increasing the potential risk of flooding is not consistent with this.