QUESTION 27: Do you agree with the preferred sites for housing development at Bexhill? If not, which site(s) should be preferred?

As a Committee, we have a responsibility to all those with a frontage (frontagers) onto Maple Walk (South). Similar committees represent the interests of the residents of other unadopted roads in the vicinity of the proposed development of BX116.

Under the terms of the original development of the De La Warr Estate, frontagers are required to pay an annual sum towards the upkeep of the road. They are also required to keep the frontages properly maintained and litter-free. The proposed development of BX116 seems to have been put forward without any regard to the special and historically significant nature of Maple Walk and the other private roads on the De La Warr Estate, nor of the impact upon the current and future residents.

We write in more detail in respect of question 35. However, we should state - in the strongest terms - our wholehearted objection to the inclusion of BX116 amongst the possible sites for new housing development. Previous development in this area has of course been the subject of allegations by the former MP for the area, Mr Charles Wardle, of improper influence on the planning process (https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmhansrd/vo010509/debtext/10509-40.htm). It is arguable that those developments should not have gone ahead. To add to them with BX116 would be wholly unacceptable to the residents whose interests we represent.