13th October 2024

Public Meeting on 8/10/24

We were delighted to see so many people at our latest public meeting, which continues to show that even after nearly 3 years the people of Cuckfield and Ansty are united in opposing the Ansty Farm site. At the meeting we covered what has been happening over the last year, including the latest political events, our fundraising approach and CPRE's view of the District Plan and the wider picture. Michael Brown also made the excellent point that the largest brownfield site in the county at Burgess Hill could easily accommodate much of the new housing that is required and yet is not part of the plan at all!

Worryingly, one of our most loyal supporters was taken unwell at our public meeting and it is a great relief to be able to let you all know that thanks to some wonderful treatment from the ambulance service and the NHS staff in Brighton he is making a good recovery and now back at home. We wish him all the very best for his continued recovery.

The following information summarises some of the key points from this meeting with the focus on events since our last newsletter at the end of July.

The Draft District Plan.

Since Mid Sussex District Council submitted their proposed plan to the Government's Planning Inspectorate on 8 July, Louise Nurser has been appointed as the local Inspector. She has confirmed that she will hear evidence from the 22nd of October to the 31st of October. The hearings will be held at the Council Chamber in Haywards Heath. A second set of hearings may then be scheduled for the second half of November but there are no details for these yet. Once these hearings are complete, the Inspector will then approve or reject the plan. If approved, this version of the plan will then be adopted, expected to be 2025. If rejected, the danger is that MSDC will be exposed to speculative planning applications, including Fairfax's, until such time as they have a new District Plan in place.

In advance of the hearings, the Inspector has published a list of some 72 "Matters, Issues, and Questions" that she would like to address. The Inspector has also made it very clear that she will not be discussing "Omission sites" and this includes Ansty Farm. It is not in the District Plan and therefore Fairfax will not be allowed to make a retrospective case for its inclusion at the October hearings. This will of course not stop Fairfax from rubbishing the other significant sites that have been included. We fully expect them to make the case that Mid Sussex have not sufficiently cooperated with other Councils in addressing housing needs. By this method they hope to influence the Inspector into rejecting the plan. We, Mid Sussex and the other developers will be united in opposing them. Our planning consultants, Sphere25, will be representing us at the hearings. Please - if you can - try to attend the hearings at the Council Offices. It really can help sway the outcome if the inspector can see evidence of the strength of local feeling.

Please use this link District Plan Review - Mid Sussex District Council to access the links to the Hearing Programme (currently in draft format with an updated version expected imminently), the Matters, Issues and Questions mentioned above and other background documents including the Evidence Base.

The Planning Application.

As you will already know, shortly before Christmas last year Fairfax submitted a planning application for 1450 homes under the existing District Plan which we and many others have vociferously opposed. This application - DM/23/2866 and DM/23/2867 - is currently with the Council who are yet to pass judgement. Given everything that they have said regarding this site however, it seems certain that the application will be rejected. We expect it will then go to appeal in Bristol where there is currently a 35 week backlog. It is at this point that our legal team (detail below) will be most fruitfully deployed.

Legal Representation.

In advance of the hearings, SCAG, the Cuckfield Society, and the two Parish Councils have engaged with Landmark Chambers, one of the country's leading legal chambers specialising in planning matters, who will be representing us. They have advised that we have a very strong case, but we cannot afford to be complacent especially regarding any delay to the adoption of the new District Plan. This is because such a delay would mean that the Government's new housing targets would then apply. Our Barrister commended the work we had done especially the quality of the reports we had commissioned which have provided her with a valuable resource in fighting our case.

Meeting with Mid Sussex District Council.

As promised by Mid Sussex, a meeting was held between the Council's planning executive and Cuckfield and Ansty & Staplefield Parish Councils. At this meeting the Council shared the work they had done on the Draft District Plan and their confidence in it. They are as certain as they can be that their Plan is sound and will pass examination without major amendments.

Meeting with County Highways.

Our transport consultants, Velocity, have met with County Highways to discuss Fairfax's attempts to provide schemes for mitigating the transport chaos that their plans would cause. Currently the transport modelling from County suggests that under any scenario tested there would be "severe" impacts at key points local to the site even without the traffic generated by the Fairfax plans. Fairfax are, not surprisingly, claiming the severe impacts can be mitigated. However, as is usually the case with transport modelling, there is no definitive answer to whether a solution is possible. Our consultants however can make an excellent case that it cannot.

Funding.

The work we are doing and especially the legal & planning consultancy costs that we are now incurring require a lot of funding. Currently we have several streams of revenue; our website, our crowdfunding page, private donations as well as funds already provided by the Parishes. It is only the crowdfunding page which is run by the Cuckfield Society that will benefit from gift aid on top of donations made. If you want to donate with the addition of gift aid, please use this link

Questions?

If you have any questions in relation to any of the above, please do send them to us at info@saynotocuckstye.co.uk.

Giles King. Chair Cuckfield Society
Brad Williams. Chair Stop Cuck-Stye Action Group
Andy Burton Chair Cuckfield Parish Council
Simon Stokes Chair Ansty & Staplefield Parish Council.