Residents’ anger over South Downs village development plans

Horsham District Council has pinpointed an area abutting Smock Alley and Haglands Lane in West Chiltington as a potential devopment site.

The land - said by residents to be a ‘wildlife haven’ - has been earmarked for the building of 15 houses and has been included in the council’s Draft Local Plan along with two other sites in the village.

But the Smock Alley Action Group, representing around 60 households in the village, is protesting.

A spokesperson said: “We understand the huge pressure on the council to accommodate the numbers set down by central government but we feel their choice of sites is lazy, developer-led and against their own policies.

“The site has mature trees and hedgerow completely to three sides and mature woodland to the west.

“The adjacent woodland site has a Biodiversity Action Plan for priority species and their habitats. This designation is used to protect species most under threat.

“Identified on site and adjacent are bats, badgers, dormice, numerous wild birds, slowworms and glow worms.

“The fields and woodland have been undisturbed for more than 50 years and are a wildlife haven.”

The group says there are other sites that are more sustainable and less harmful to the environment.

The spokesperson added: “The potential access roads are Smock Alley and Haglands Lane, both of which are very narrow roads and would require widening.

“In addition, it would require significant hedgerow removal.”

The groups says that the local parish council has twice previously refused inclusion of the land in the Neighbourhood Plan and it has twice been refused by Horsham District Council, and twice at appeal by the Planning Inspectorate in the last seven years.

“If building on this site were essential, met a local housing need, mitigated all the ecological constraints with a net gain, combated the visual, privacy and landscape issues and conformed to both current and emerging Horsham District Council and National Planning Policy Framework, we would understand its inclusion in the Draft Local Plan. It does not,” said the action group spokesperson.

“Why are we wasting money on defending appeals to build on greenfield sites, when brownfield are available and allowing the district council to decide the sites for our Neighbourhood Plans that should be community led?

“This is a district wide problem.”