I am writing to express my wholehearted objection to the inclusion of BX116 amongst the possible sites for new housing development, although I am conscious of the pressures Rother District Council are under to provide a suitable number of properties to meet their target of 3100 by 2028.

1. Infrastructure

I. A major issue that seems not to have been addressed in any development in Little Common Village, and in this DaSA documentation, is the lack of infrastructure planning to support proposed developments. Already planning permission has been granted for 342 houses on Barnhorn Green and I understand that there are other planning applications in the pipeline or approved for Ashridge Court (RR/2016/3206/P - 31 properties), 45/47 Barnhorn Road (RR/2016/2430/P - 10 dwellings, 63/65 Cooden Sea Road (RR/2015/3103/P - 8 properties) and 40/42 Cooden Sea Road (RR/2016/3254/P - 9 properties). Surely, no further developments should be contemplated for the Little Common area until and unless a Little Common by-pass has been constructed joining the A259 near The Lamb Inn to Ninfield Road joining with the new North Bexhill Access Road (NBAR) and an impact assessment on Little Common Village and the A259 has been completed after the Barnhorn Green development has been built and been in existence for a period of several years.

ii. I see that there are other and indeed more suitable sites available to provide at least some of the housing; in particular (a) site ref BX124 (Option 2) off the NBAR where up to 65 dwellings can be provided with far better infrastructure availability and (b) site ref BX101 (Northeye) - a brownfield site with up to 115 houses proposed. I understand that it is government policy that brownfield should always be preferred to greenfield, according to the National Planning Policy Framework document (NPPF).

iii. Surely, it makes more sense to defer any decision on BX116 for at least 5 years and until final decisions are known on residential dwellings for BX120 (Barnhorn Green), BX124 (NBAR) and BX101 (Northeye) as well as other proposed developments in the area. The need for any further development along the A259 around Little Common Village might then be seen to be redundant.

iv. Given the above comments, were permission to be granted for any proposed development in the Little Common area, the questions I have to ask are:

1. Where are the children to go for their primary or secondary schooling? Little Common Village Primary School is already at capacity.
2. Where are the Doctors' surgeries? Little Common GP Surgery is also already at capacity or near capacity.
3. Little Common is a village with very few local jobs, which means that residents must drive to work putting more pressure on the existing roads.
4. Parking by parents for the primary school has increased significantly on Birkdale and is hazardous at the best of times, with vehicles parked on both sides of the road, frequently on the pavement and green verges. It is also on a major and busy bus route, which causes huge traffic congestion at put down and pick up times. There will be even greater problems if, for instance, a bus or large vehicle is going one way and an emergency vehicle wants to go the other way. This can only worsen and there is an accident or incident waiting to happen here.
5. The only parking for the doctors' surgery is down a side residential road, which is generally completely full of cars.

There is no evidence of any of these issues being considered or addressed properly in any of the proposals.

As a local resident of almost 35 years, I have to say that a proposal for 160 houses is far too dense for this area and the available local infrastructure. The density could be reduced by building the affordable housing off site (e.g. site ref BX124 or BX101) and taking into account any future submitted planning applications in the immediate area, as mentioned above. This could reduce the residual housing need to no more than 80 properties and perhaps considerably less. At least, any decision on future developments should not be contemplated until the full impact of the Barnhorn Green development, along with other current proposals, has been fully assessed.

2. The proposal for site access off Spindlewood Drive, if this site were to be approved, is totally inappropriate for the local roads and it must be instead off Barnhorn Road. Furthermore, this is in accordance with RDC's Local Core Strategy Paper of September 2014, paragraph 8.56.

a. Due to the lack of suitable infrastructure, nearly all traffic resulting from the above listed developments will arise from the need by residents to use their cars to go to work, take children to school and to go to large shopping centres. This is harmful to the environment and will generate additional noise and air pollution especially around the A259. Little Common Village provides only limited village amenities.

b. As already stated, there are serious car parking issues in and around Little Common Village with frequent and obvious breaches of parking laws as people double park or park on double yellow lines and on pavements and verges.

c. Any further large residential developments in or around Little Common Village will consequently tip the local infrastructure into a state of crisis and surely must not be approved nor permitted.

3. Conclusion

d. The proposed development off Spindlewood Drive is not required and is inappropriate and would be highly detrimental to Little Common Village as a whole.
e. Alternative sites are far more appropriate in terms of access and exiting or planned infrastructure facilities and minimal environmental damage, especially the NBAR site (BX124)
f. RDC must take small site windfalls into account when estimating the likely numbers of properties to be achieved up to 2028.
g. Spindlewood Drive (BX116) can then be removed from the second DaSA consultation process as it will have become superfluous.
h. RDC must defer any decision on BX116 for at least 5 years and certainly until the impact is known from the residential dwellings built on sites BX120 (Barnhorn Green), BX124 (NBAR) and BX101 (Northeye) (if approved) as well as other proposed developments in the area.