Downlands Farm: Consultant urges council rethink

PROPOSALS to develop Downlands Farm in Uckfield have been given the thumbs down by Wealden Council officers who favour providing new homes at Bird in Eye in the town.

When efforts were made to include Downlands Farm in the new Local Plan officers argued against the idea and they were supported by a majority of councillors.

But David Evison, of Evison and Company, planning consultants, who has circulated proposals for the Downlands Farm site - reported in last week's Express - said they would put in formal representations at the public consultation stage, which starts in January, in the hope that the council would rethink its proposals and include the site in the second deposit draft of the plan.

The council's policy and development manager Mick Oldham told a meeting of the Wealden development control sub-committees on Tuesday that officers had twice looked at Downlands Farm as an alternative for housing allocation but 'we have found that in our judgement its disadvantages outweigh the advantages'.

Planning considerations included landscape, transport, sustainability and accessibility. Officers felt it was wrong to affect the nature of the landscape at Downlands Farm as seen from afar and within by development.

The county highways authority had advised that any access would have to come from the Black Down roundabout - near the petrol filling station and Little Chef/Burger King on the Uckfield bypass - and it would open up quite a bit of Uckfield, on the north west side including Budletts, before getting into Downlands itself.

Mr Oldham said they discussed the option of a roundabout further down the bypass but that was unacceptable to the highways agency.

He added it was clear that the site at Downlands Farm was further away from the secondary school, the hospital and the town centre than a development at Bird in Eye would be and people would use their cars to get from the bypass into town, so adding to congestion. He also said Snatts Road had a 'certain character' that officers wouldn't want to see changed and the highways authority didn't wish to see any significant development going on to Snatts Road.

He said there was no need for additional secondary school accommodation at Downlands Farm - as proposed by Evison and Company - because Uckfield Community College could accommodate children from 500 new homes on its present site.

Mr Oldham said that a business park would need frontage along the bypass to make it successful but that would not be available if the county insisted on access to the site from the Black Down roundabout. He was also concerned about a mix of housing and business traffic on the site.