Villagers need £125,000 to save Ditchling field from development and turn it into a wildlife haven

Ditchling Nature Space, an informal group representing various societies and interests, is chaired by Hugh St John, of Lodge Hill Lane.

Hugh, 75, said the field near his lane, which was previously used for keeping rescue horses, went up for sale at the beginning of 2024.

He said: “A number of us saw it and thought we’d better think about it.”

He said: “A similar plot of land went up for sale a few years ago and was bought by somebody who’s trying to develop it.”

Hugh said the like-minded residents thought they would not raise the £125,000 needed to buy the land in time. But he said someone told them that they would buy the land on the understanding that the village would buy it back.

Hugh continued: “So we – myself and my neighbours – got together and talked about it and said ‘yes, we will do something to buy it back’. We want to stop it from going into the hands of developers but we feel there needs to be an idea of what we’re going to do with it. Do we have a vision for what we’re going to do with the field once we’ve got it?”

Major southbound road could close for two weeks for gas mains replacement

Hugh went to Ditchling Parish Council who suggested he put together his current ‘working party’. He said: “We’ve met several times and there are a lot of people who are already very active in the village with other organisations who have put their time in to think about not only what you do with it but how to get the money. On the vision side we have somebody who works for Sussex Local Nature Partnership in the village who has been extremely helpful in pointing us in the right direction to various organisations who are in the business of nature restoration and biodiversity and so forth. This has been incredibly useful in chasing all those people, including South Downs National Park, their nature based solutions manager and the planners in the South Downs.”

They have also managed to get in touch with charitable organisations offering support for developing the land for newts, frogs and other kinds of wildlife.

Hugh said: “Hopefully we can get the money together. I’ve gone round, cap in hand, to my neighbours who have put up pledges of money because we have to raise to buy the field back by the end of February.”

But he said he needs to ask the wider village for pledges to hit the target, adding that the group held a public meeting this week. He said many of the 80 people who attended that meeting filled in pledge slips and the group looks set to get £94,000 together, which is ‘incredibly encouraging’. He added that once the group has purchased the field they still need some money left to develop and maintain it.

The field is 200m by 50m field and stretches down the Keymer Road. The idea at the moment is to turn the boggy western end into wetland while having a ‘middle space’ of grassland. The area next to the car park could be used for occasional functions like Ditchling Fair Day.

He said it will be open to the public too, adding: “We have t think of everybody and I think the idea is generally that it will be somewhere that people can go. We don’t want to interfere with what’s happening to nature too much but even places like Knepp have paths through them for people to see what’s going on.”

Hugh said he has received encouragement from both Ditchling and Keymer because many residents are in favour of maintaining a ‘strategic gap’ between the two villages.

People who would like to get involved with the group can email [email protected] or visit www.ditchlingnaturespace.org.uk. Alternatively, people can drop a slip into the village post office, marked ‘Ditchling Nature Space’ and also say whether they want to become members of the Friends of Ditchling.