Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Rother District Council Development and Site Allocations Local Plan. The following are officer comments from East Sussex County Council (ESCC). The response has been divided into sections -a separate section for each specialist area (see table of contents below). Some of the responses provide specific answers to the consultation questions, whilst some of the other responses have only provided advice and comments which do not directly relate to any particular question.

General

It is recommended that references to specific infrastructure measures being provided through development contributions under site Policies are removed. Such as in Policy BEX2: Land at Preston Hall Farm, Sidley. How infrastructure is to be funded should be left to the Infrastructure Delivery Plan and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Reg. 123 list. Funding and specific requirements are subject to change therefore it is more appropriate for this issue to be dealt within those documents. There are also likely to be major changes to the development contributions regime indicated in the recent CIL Review Team report 'A new approach to development contributions'. The DaSA we would propose should therefore be silent on these matters as it cannot be comprehensive and current.

It is suggested that the Core Strategy section text should highlight that it contains the overarching policies on infrastructure particularly Policy IM2 Implementation and Infrastructure. It is also suggested that it should state that infrastructure requirements within the DaSA will not be exhaustive but that current information on infrastructure requirements will be contained within the Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) which will be regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in requirements and funding.