Electricity substations refused for Chailey Commons nature reserve: conservationists welcome Planning Inspectorate’s decision

The Planning Inspectorate refused consent on Wednesday, August 2, following a hearing that opened on June 6 and site visits on June 7.

UK Power Networks (UKPN) had applied under the Commons Act 2006 to create substations at locations near Romany Ridge Common and Memorial Common, North Chailey. The references are COM/3299537 and COM/3298979.

CCS chairman William Coleman said: “By refusing this application the Planning Inspectorate have saved our much-loved common land and species that are restricted to these historic landscapes.”

He said: “This rare heathland habitat is of national importance as only 20 per cent of UK heathland still survives.”

A UKPN spokesperson said: “We respect the decision of the planning inspector and will continue working to find a suitable site for these two electricity substations to maintain and upgrade power supplies to residents in the village. We will continue to explore alternative options while working to keep the impact on Chailey Common to a minimum.”

The CCS said both sites are near busy roads with Romany Ridge being central to the Chailey Commons Site of Special Scientific Interest. They said the CCS and others gave evidence at the public hearing in Newick Village Hall about the value of the Chailey Commons LNR. They objected to the proposals on the grounds of landscape, nature conservation, archaeology, public access and traffic safety.

CCS conservation officer Michael Way said: “I recognise that the electricity network needs to be updated but from the outset we insisted that this should not be at the expense of our nationally important habitats and open common land.”

The Open Spaces Society also objected to the proposals with case officer Hugh Craddock saying that alternative sites could be found.

Henri Brocklebank, director of conservation at Sussex Wildlife Trust, said “Lowland heath is one of the rarest habitats in the world and the UK holds 20 per cent of the global total. That’s a significant proportion and we have a special obligation to protect this rare habitat and the specialist wildlife that calls it home, including the beautiful blue flowers of Marsh Gentian, carnivorous Sundew plants and charismatic Nightjar, a nocturnal bird that flies here to breed all the way from Africa.”

UKPN's applications to East Sussex County Council, dated May 12, 2022, were both for works including ‘the erection of fencing, installation of a substation and excavation of a trench’.

In the decision document inspector Mark Yates BA(Hons) MIPROW said: “I find that there is the potential for the proposed works to have an adverse impact on nature conservation.”

He said temporary works were ‘unlikely to have any longstanding effect on the eastern or western sites’, adding that they were not likely to impact parties with ‘some form of interest in the land’ or wider public rights of access.

But he said: “Nonetheless, there is an expectation in the consents policy that works of this nature only take place where they confer some wider public benefit. In both cases only a small number of people would benefit from the construction of the substations.”

He added that alternative sites ‘could remove the need’ for substations at the eastern and western sites.