Big housing scheme for Sayers Common is thrown out

An outline plan for 120 new homes and a nursing home that could increase the size of Sayers Common by 40 per cent has been thrown out by district councillors.
Protestors from Dunlop Close, Sayers Common in a back garden of one of the residents, with a view across the fields that will be built on, in the background.Protestors from Dunlop Close, Sayers Common in a back garden of one of the residents, with a view across the fields that will be built on, in the background.
Protestors from Dunlop Close, Sayers Common in a back garden of one of the residents, with a view across the fields that will be built on, in the background.

Chairman of Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common Parish Council, John Wilkinson said: “In Sayers Common there are no doctors’ surgeries, no dentists, no retail shops, no banks, no schools - everything is going to depend on the car.”

He added: “Hurstpierpoint is the nearest village with shops - where the High Street is already gridlocked and the nearest station at Hassocks is jammed solid with cars.”

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Cllr Wilkinson made his hard-hitting comments at a meeting of the District Planning Committee last Thursday, which considered an outline scheme by Woodcock Holdings for a development off Kingsland Laines.

A similar scheme by the developer was rejected by district councillors in October 2012 and is subject to an appeal in June.

Thirty per cent of the homes in the latest scheme are designated as ‘affordable’ and a spokesman for the developer told the meeting: “Affordable homes will make an important contribution to the district council’s housing deficit.”

However, the draft Neighbourhood Plan envisages just 30 to 40 new homes for Sayers Common over the next 20 years because of the village’s lack of amenities and a history of flooding problems.

For the full story see this week’s Mid Sussex Times, published on Thursday, April 11.

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