Proposed Submission Development and Site Allocations (DaSA) Local Plan

We object to the land between NBAR and the Combe Valley Countryside Park, highlighted on the plan attached, being included in the strategic gap, as highlighted in our representations in relation to development boundaries and the BEX1 allocation. This land is in our opinion well suited to employment use development.

The area is visually self-contained and free of both ecological and topographical constraints, being bounded on three sides by landscape features including a strong ridge line and ancient woodland, which would conceal development from view in both Bexhill and Hastings/St. Leonards. It would effectively limit development further into the proposed strategic gap beyond this point owing to the statutory protection offered to ancient woodlands.

We would also query the necessity of a policy of this nature in this location given that the gap between Bexhill and Hastings/St. Leonards is more than 3km and already largely protected by the Combe Haven SSSI covering 2.6km of this gap. We do not feel that there is sufficient justification to exclude this land from the development allocations given the land's potential as one of the best serviced employment use development sites in East Sussex.

It should be remembered that the urban extension to the north and the north east of Bexhill is so located because the settlement is constructed to the north by the High Weald AONB and to the west by the Pevensey Levels SAC. Given the above it seems unnecessary to constrain development in this area which is by virtue or natural constraints incapable of joining with the Hastings/ St. Leonards settlement.

We feel that inclusion of the land identified in the first paragraph in the local plan as part of a larger employment allocation designed to benefit fully from significant public infrastructure investment and absence of any identifiable development constraints on the site would be more in keeping with the principle of sustainable development and the general development principles set out in Saved Policy GD1 of the 2006 Rother District Local Plan, and would welcome a decision by the council to allocate the land for these purposes.

We note the allocation of land within our ownership, for five gypsy and traveller pitches as part of the BEX3c allocation. We are disappointed that the local planning authority did not positively prepare this allocation by prior engagement with the objector prior to publishing this draft DaSA allocation. There are several issues with this allocation that make it unsound. These are set out below;
1. The land included within the allocation is encompassed within the planning application for NBAR as part of the landscape mitigation scheme as included in planning permission for the road (ref: RR/2015/2260/P) granted in February 2016.
2. The site itself is bounded on three sides by other land owners who may not be willing to provide a route of access via their land for the proposed use, leading us to conclude an access onto NBAR would be required.
There is a significant levels difference between the road and this site which would need to be graded with a suitable treatment to allow access for full size caravans. The construction of such an access would at this point in the road would utilise a significant portion of the site and be a costly endeavour, leading us to doubt the ability of this site to be delivered without subsidy from a wider development which we are not able to offer as our efforts are focused on commercial development and employment creation within the area, which in itself has a requirement for subsidy and has a considerably lower potential for profit than the housing allocations being brought forward in this plan.
3. We consider the approach of allocating the traveller sites to cover the entirety of a single land ownership parcel already dedicated for the delivery of an existing planning permission detrimental to the viability of delivery for this development. In proposing this the local planning authority limits the potential for securing the viable
delivery of these pitches within the plan period. As a result of the above highlighted issues, we are of the view that the proposed allocation was not positively prepared and is unlikely to be effective. While we recognise that this land has potential to contribute towards meeting housing needs and will support the council in bringing forward viable development to contribute towards this on this site, we consider it unlikely that that could be achieved without achieving prices in excess of those
previously achieved in the UK market for these pitches.
We recognise the identified need for these pitches and the planning authorities legal duty to allocate them but would consider it a more appropriate approach to incorporate these pitches as part of more profitable use allocations to allow them to be effectively secured as part of planning conditions for these schemes and ensuring that the needs of the gypsy and traveller communities can be met throughout the plan period.

Elements of this policy are considered to be unsound as they seek to impose restrictions beyond those already determined at an outline planning permission stage and place unrealistic obligations on the objector as the developer of the site.
We would suggest the removal of all obligations to work specifically with Southern Water to deliver sewerage infrastructure to the site prior to occupation, as requiring the delivery of infrastructure through an organisation that have proven to be slow and reluctant to positively engage in the delivery of infrastructure would unduly slow
the delivery of development. This policy would also unfairly advantage Southern Water over providers of alternative sewerage infrastructure provision options such as on-site treatment plants, or the use of inset providers to deliver development on a more viable timescale. We consider there to be no planning justification for
requiring developers to rely on this provider who has failed to deliver infrastructure prior to occupation of developments.
We do not consider the policies current wording to be reflective of our current planning permission (ref:RR/2017/2181/P) for the land contained within the allocation. We consider it to be unjustified and inconsistent with national planning policy for the local planning authority to adopt planning policy inconsistent with existing planning consents. We consider the main issues with the present wording to be;
1. The increase in landscape buffers and exclusion of parts of the consented outline planning permission from
the BEX1 allocation, in particular the exclusion of the parts of the permission to the north of NEAR, resulting in a
reduction in the area allocated for employment uses within the plan. We consider this approach fundamentally
unsound as noted in paragraph 9.8 of the proposed DaSA submission. Significant progress in bringing forward
business land has been made since the construction of the link road and we cannot see any justification for
reducing the size of employment land allocations which benefit from the £130m link road investment.
2. The policy states that development will be predominately light manufacturing and offices, falling within Class B1, this contrasts with the planning permission with was granted to include B2 manufacturing uses, which has also been considered an appropriate use for the site subject to suitable screening in local planning policy dating back to 2006, including the North East Bexhill Supplementary Planning Document 2009. We suggest that the allocation is amended to incorporate B2 manufacturing uses to reflect the existing consent as the changes do not appear to be justified. It should be noted that this is one of the few B" manufacturing Locations within the entire Rother District.
3. We also note that the policy states that existing landscape boundaries should be retained and reinforced, including along the boundary with NBAR, as indicated on the Detail Map, we object to this policy amendment as it is not consistent with the outline planning permission and would lead to further reductions in the already finite
levels of business space available, despite a proposed increase in overall settlement size through additional housing allocations.
As such we would suggest that the allocation policy is amended to fully reflect the existing planning permissions and that additional employment land is allocated to meet the employment needs of residents living in the proposed additional housing therefore delivering, a more balanced mixture of development within the urban
extension.

The objector believes that the plan identifying the development boundary tight to the northern side of NBAR is fundamentally unsound as is not consistent with existing saved general development plan policies, in particular criteria (vi) of policy GD1 , principle (v) of Policy DS1 from the saved policies of the 2006 Rather District Local Plan, Policy OSS2 of the Rather Local Plan Core Strategy 2014 and the existing planning permissions including outline planning permission (reference RR/2017/2181/P) covering the employment development of the existing BX3 allocation. In respect of policies GD1 and OSS2 the development boundary does not respect the topography of the sites surrounding the road and would result in the creation of a number of fields that are constrained by the road, topography and natural landscape features that are too small for commercial agricultural uses, failing to respect the objectives of this policies which require development to respect topographies and state that development boundaries will be reviewed in the DaSA following physical features, unless this may suggest a potential for development that is inappropriate.
In respect of policy DS1, principle (v) is that best use is made of existing infrastructure, including transport, community facilities, mains drainage and all other necessary service media given that the proposed development boundary would limit the utilisation NEAR, halving the volume of development that could be enabled by one of the largest public infrastructure projects in the area. It should be noted that NBAR has been constructed as the primary service corridor for the urban extension with strategic mains supplies and ducts designed to serve development on both sides of the road, installed during the construction of the road and that this corridor remains the natural gravity drainage corridor for Southern Water's foul drainage proposals. The proposed development boundary is directly in conflict with this policy by restricting the use of this infrastructure. Given the existing planning permissions, we propose that the development boundary is redrawn to the north of
NEAR so as to follow natural landscape features following the significant ancient woodland lined ridge that tops the valley through which the road has been routed as indicated on the plan attached.
The land to the north of NBAR identified on this plan is not subject to any Green Belt or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designations and is classified as primarily being within Flood Zone 1 and was predominately allocated as part of the BX3 employment allocation in the North East Bexhill Supplementary Planning Document 2009. It should however be noted that this plan also utilised the road as a development boundary on an alignment which was routed through the established ancient woodland on the ridge to the north of the of the present alignment.
To accord with national planning policy and avoid the ancient woodlands the developer amended the routing of NBAR to the south. Reducing the volume of land contained within the area between the road and the existing settlement considerably.
Given that parts of this land had previously been identified for development and there are no apparent development constraints, this land should be identified for development for a mixture of employment, leisure and sports facilities. Potential uses include the development of a mixed-use facility to accommodate several units suitable for small businesses to compliment larger employment uses on the BEX1 allocation and recreational facilities.