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

To the Planning Strategy Team,
I am writing to submit my formal objection to the proposed Rother Local Plan 2025–2042, on behalf of local environmenal education charity Community Supporters.
We are deeply concerned that the current proposals includes area labelled BX15.

Our specific objections, referenced by the relevant consultation questions, are outlined below:

Most importantly, in 2022 Community Supporters submitted an application business plan to Rother District Council, as per the councils request, to outline taking on a long term lease on this plot of land and some neighbouring land to protect it from development and to maintain and enhance the biodiversity by creating a conservation area and outdoor education space - open to the public. So we are deeply concerned that this project and need to protect this land from development is now at risk.

This are is one of very few natural green corridors and is a haven for wild flora and fauna. Community Supporters commissioned a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal as part of our submitted business plan which outlined how the land could be improved for biodiversity and showed there was evidence of ecologically important and protect wildlife using this land.

We also strongly object to the proposed housing targets. The move to a “standard method” calculation of 912 units per year — a threefold increase over previous targets — is fundamentally incompatible with a district where 83% of the land is protected within the High Weald National Landscape.

The plan fails to demonstrate how Rother’s infrastructure, which is already under significant pressure, can accommodate this increase. GP surgeries, schools, and our narrow historic road network are not equipped to support this level of growth. The Council should prioritise a lower, locally derived target that reflects the constraints of our protected landscape, in line with national planning policy.

The strategy to focus growth contradicts the Council’s duty to conserve and enhance natural beauty, plus the fact Rother District Council has in 2019 declared a Climate emergency and more recently in December 2025 declared a Nature emergency. While the plan refers to prioritising brownfield land, the proposed allocations rely heavily on greenfield development.

The Council must reconsider this scale of development. Our natural landscape and historic heritage should be protected for future generations, not compromised by unsustainable housing targets. I urge the Council to remove site BX15 from the Local Plan.

Thank you