Eight-week public consultation on plans for 3,000 new homes between South Chailey and Plumpton: East Chiltington among villages that will be 'engulfed', say campaigners
Residents have been invited to submit their views on a proposal for up to 3,000 new homes between South Chailey and Plumpton Green.
The North Barnes Farm project team said an eight-week public consultation is running from Monday, August 24, to Friday, October 16.
The partnership said the local community can get involved in the consultation on the project website at www.NorthBarnes.co.uk. There are webinar sessions throughout September and an all-age consultation day at Plumpton Racecourse on Saturday, September 5 (10am-5pm).
The North Barnes scheme proposes the creation of a new primary school, nursery, healthcare facilities and parkland, as well as the new homes, in an ‘infrastructure-led development’.
Alistair Watson, chief executive of Welbeck Land, who are part of the team, said: “Average house prices in Lewes are 9.4 times average local incomes, and rents went up over six per cent last year. Concentrating new homes and infrastructure in a single location is the best way to meet the area’s needs and can deliver far more benefits than piecemeal development.
“Developable land outside the South Downs National Park (SDNP) is scarce. Brownfield sites alone cannot meet local housing need. These plans offer one of best opportunities to create sustainable growth in Lewes district, close to a well-connected rail station.”
The partnership said the site is located outside the SDNP area and said the plans would see infrastructure built early on, which would increase the availability of local public services for people already living in the area, as well as future residents.
The team behind North Barnes includes Welbeck Land and the landowner Eton College. The partnership is also supported by ADAM Architecture and ECE Planning.
Some residents have previously opposed plans for thousands of homes in the Plumpton Green area. In December 2025, members of the Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign group were against the North Barnes Farm project team’s updated plans for 3,000 homes at North Barnes Farm. Don’t Urbanise the Downs formed in 2021 after Eton College announced previous plans for a 3,000-house new town on 500 acres of rural downland at East Chiltington. The group believes the Plumpton Green, East Chiltington and South Chailey area is the wrong place for a development like this and is concerned about an increase in traffic pollution, the loss of habitat for wildlife and a lack of infrastructure.
The North Barnes website said the proposed development ‘is being brought forward by a partnership with vision and conscience’, adding that the plan is about ‘creating lasting social, economic and environmental benefit for the widest group of people’. It added that North Barnes ‘is conceived as a complete and sustainable community’.
Following the announcement of the public consultation, a Don’t Urbanise The Downs spokesperson said: “The consultation events that Eton is proposing for its North Barnes site are designed to project an image of ‘community engagement’ but it’s simply a tick box exercise for their benefit. Our position remains – as always – that people should join the Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign and wait for the official Council-led consultation process that will follow the submission of a formal planning application.”
The group pointed out that the North Barnes Farm site had been excluded from a draft of the Lewes Local Plan in 2023 and said the project’s 2021 consultation received thousands of objections.
The spokesperson said: “The Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign group has been fighting Eton’s proposed new town since 2021. The 450-acre site is a nature-rich, deeply rural area in unspoilt Sussex countryside right on the border of the South Downs National Park. The development will engulf the tiny villages of Plumpton Green, East Chiltington and South Chailey and turn them into one urban sprawl.
They said: “We dispute all Eton’s claims that the development will benefit the area or provide truly affordable housing. The site is totally unsuitable for a large-scale development and totally lacking in the necessary infrastructure. Decades of construction work and thousands of extra vehicles will create traffic hell. The scheme will also deal a death blow to the fragile ecology of a very special area of Sussex downland.”