Rother Local Plan 2025-2042 – Development Strategy and Site Allocations

It is with a heavy heart that I submit these comments on the draft local plan. Experience has shown that even if a site is outside the current plan - notably the land adjacent to Clavering Walk - it is still the subject of a planning application by developers and is given the green light by the Planning Inspectorate.

However, I would like to register my distress that Rother's proposed development seems so disproportionately focused upon the area around and to the west of Little Common. This is despite the known existing challenges involving severe traffic congestion, water and sewage pressures, and the strain upon critical services like schools and hospitals. (I recently attended A&E at Conquest Hospital and can personally attest to the pressures there even during mid-week. Eastbourne General Hospital is in a similar position.)

The stated ambition to be 'Green to the Core' is also undermined by the existential threat to the Pevensey Levels represented by the proposed housing developments.

It is to be doubted that there is any democratic support for a 'West Bexhill Growth Area' - a term that has formed no part of the public platform of any local political party.

Moreover, the suggestion at paragraph 5 of BX18 that services like banking will form part of the Growth Area is frankly risible.

The plan itself details the reasons why further development of West Bexhill is so fraught:
• Its proximity to the environmentally sensitive area of the Pevensey Levels, meaning any new development must incorporate careful sustainable drainage (SuDS) solutions comprising at least three treatment stages in accordance with Policy ENV2 of the draft Local Plan (2024);
• Impacts on the A259 trunk road, including the Little Common Roundabout where there are known capacity constraints leading to congestion;
• The road network away from the A259, which (particularly in the west) comprises narrow, winding country lanes unsuited to additional traffic;
• Its sensitive landscape setting, with long views into the countryside to the south-west and north;
• Areas at risk of flooding, which effectively encircle the Growth Area to the south and north;
• The distance of many large sites from services, facilities and public transport connections in Bexhill and Little Common, meaning that without careful planning and provision of infrastructure, new residential development could be unsustainable and largely car-dependent.
None of the proposed sites is immune to these challenges, but BX28 does at least have the merit of being a brownfield location. BX20, BX22 and BX27 are the most egregious.

I am not persuaded that there is an overwhelming 'local need' for the proposed housing developments. They are clearly designed to meet national targets and objectives. But that is not a justification for putting so much of Bexhill's green surroundings under concrete, and bringing the area to gridlock.