I am concerned that the consultation of the Rother Draft Local Plan has been too complex and opaque for the average person who has little time to read through such detailed documents or to respond on such a technically difficult system. The consultation needs to be rerun in a clearer similar manner.

I am also writing to formally object to the Rother Draft Local Plan reference number BAT00014, which concerns the proposed development on Almonry Farm. I strongly oppose this plan for several reasons: – The area proposed is grade farming land full of a large range of rare and important fauna and flora including bats, newts, ancient trees and a very special green amenity space for the community. In addition, the local roads are already at breaking point with a very large secondary school listed as the access road and such numbers would completely change the character and community of this important historic town.

I urge the council to reconsider this plan and protect the character and environment of our community.
Please confirm receipt of this objection and keep me informed of any further developments related to this application. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

This consultation process appears to have been designed to stop people for commenting on the plans. Firstly, there was the lack of opportunity at the presentation given in the village for villagers to write any queries/concerns they had, relying on the Rother staff to remember what was said, as they did not write anything down either, and now this form is not in a user friendly format and certainly not for the faint-hearted. It is long winded and cumbersome to use and just getting to log on will be beyond some. You state that Rother has a higher than average elderly population and by default, will probably be less tech-savvy and therefore will be less able to contribute. So this then becomes a purely tick box exercise so say that it has been done to move on to the next step.

Having attended this presentation, my partner and I feel that you need to be made aware of how poor this event was. Our reasoning is below :

1) Advertising. We only knew that this was happening as we received an email. We have seen no local advertising, and there was no advertising outside of the village hall either before or during the event that could be seen by passers-by on the road.

2) On entering the hall, there was no member of Rother there to explain how the event was to work and how to raise issues.

3) There was no register to sign to enable Rother to know how many residents attended, and therefore, with the inability of residents to be able to comment at the event, Rother cannot prove that they have conducted a thorough Reg 18 consultation.

4) Whilst the display boards did show lists of the policies and their headings contained in the draft plan. It has to be noted that there was no reference made to the number of houses each village etc. are expected to produce. These figures are included in the plan and should have been on prominent display. After all, this is what most concerns residents rather than if Rother has a policy for net zero!

Robertsbridge is, again, due to receive the biggest proportion of housing in the villages and this could, also, be seen as a reason for not showing the housing figures here. Perhaps they were displayed at other venues?

5) The Rother staff were not easily recognisable if you wished to speak with them. We did eventually fine someone who said that her lanyard was broken, but she did not show us any other identification. Looking around the room, there was not any evidence of other people with lanyards either.

6) There did not seem to be any means of being able to write your views/queries/concerns available. Relying on the memory of Rother staff to remember what has been discussed is not sufficient for such an important consultation. The person we spoke to made no notes whilst we were talking to her.

7) It did not seem appropriate for our local councillor, who is on Rother planning committee, and her husband, chairman of the Robertsbridge local plan, to be present and talking to residents. Both are well known locally, and by speaking to them, residents may have felt that they had expressed their views. More worryingly, they may have talked residents around to another way of thinking.

8) The matter we discussed with the Rother representative was the splitting of Robertsbridge and Northbridge Street on the display board. Northbridge Street is part of Robertsbridge, not separate (plan page 158 fig 31 plus other entries in the plan). As this was on a board showing the population of the areas, it can only be seen as a way of trying to mislead residents as to the current population of the village. After all, Battle and Telham are not separated.


We have since been through the local plan document and seen how much was missing from the presentation, hence some of the references above. Most residents would not do this, trusting the council to be open with them.

Unfortunately, this poor presentation leads us to conclude that Rother, once again, appear to be offering 'lip service' only by doing the barest minimum required, and have little regard for the views of residents.

Judith Rogers & Richard Hedger

• Poor communication of the plan by RDC: the 2020-2040 reference in the title suggests that the Local Plan has been in existence for some four years already, but the commencement of public discussions was really only from May this year. Moreover, communication of the plan has mainly been via the RDC website and, to a limited extent, via the “Rother District Council - My Alerts.” It should be noted that some elderly members in areas affected by this plan do not have access to a computer or familiarity with internet technology. In hindsight, dissemination of the Local Plan may have been more expediently communicated by an alert in advance in written form when the residents’ RDC annual council tax letter went out earlier in 2024, rather than by late local “word of mouth” and rushed sequence of consultation meetings over the past twelve weeks in various parts of the district as was the case. This would have saved money and avoided many GDPR issues in that communication would have been directly to RDC ratepayers.

• Excessive volumes of planned site and map detail: at over 450 pages in length, the document is not user friendly and difficult to follow for the first-time reader. The relevant chapters, namely HEELA-Part-2-CHAPTER-5-NORTHERN ROTHER April 2024 (77 pages) and “Identifying sites for Gypsies, Travellers and Travelling Showpeople in Rother, Interim Report” April 2024 (14 pages) could also have been condensed into one document and made even shorter, if the County Ecologist would have been allowed to screen the document before its publication. The Country Ecologist should have been given first-hand opportunity to rule out obvious “green-belt” areas of natural beauty, fields worthy of environmental protection for wildlife and ancient woodlands.