Crowborough couple highlight ‘ironic’ decision after plan for ‘eco-home’ is refused while hundreds of asylum seekers are housed nearby
A couple living next to a site for asylum seeker accommodation in Crowborough have had their application for a new house refused.
Phil and Christine Straker, who are both retired, live next to Crowborough Training Camp, which is being used by the Home Office to house hundreds of single adult males claiming asylum in this country.
The Home Office has said the move is ‘part of the government’s mission to end the use of expensive hotels’ for housing asylum seekers.
Phil, 69, has called the recent refusal of his application for a new home ‘ironic’, saying it was turned down because of its ‘impact’ on the area, while the continuing plan for the army camp next door is to accommodate around 500 people.
Phil told this newspaper that the converted barn he and his wife own is too big for them now, saying: “The plan was to build ourselves a slightly smaller, more economical-to-run house – so ‘eco-home’ if you like – on the site of the old stables.”
He said: “We own this paddock behind the barn, which has got a log store and stables there.”
The couple had made a planning application to Wealden District Council (WDC) in July last year for a new self-build, four bedroom house on part of their site. The application’s design and access statement said the home would ‘include all the latest modern energy saving systems’, including P.V Panels, air sourced heating, water saving facilities and electric car charging facilities. It also said the proposal would not harm the character and appearance of the site, adding that it would be adjacent to a recently built development for 18 new homes.
But a decision notice on September 18, 2025, refused permission, saying the plan would ‘result in harm to the character of the High Weald National Landscape (HWNL)’. It said the proposed home’s ‘visual detachment and domestication of agricultural land’ would undermine the ‘intrinsic openness and natural beauty’ of the HWNL. It also said the application site lies within 7km of the Ashdown Forest Special Protection Area, and is ‘likely to have a significant adverse impact’ on it.
Phil appealed against this decision and his form was dated January 21, 2026, the day before the Home Office confirmed that the first asylum seekers had been moved into Crowborough Training Camp.
Phil said he and Christine felt they had ‘a reasonably good chance’ of getting the application through because of the nearby homes being built and the nearby army camp.
But he said: “Ultimately, even on appeal, it failed and they (WDC) said it was because of the impact on Ashdown Forest.”
Phil said he and his wife will ‘carry on living in the barn’ but he feels his self-build home should have been allowed, saying it ‘would have freed up a very large house for another family to move into’.
The appeal decision notice, published on April 14, said the reasons for dismissal included: the proposed dwelling being ‘set apart’ from all nearby houses; the area having a ‘moderate to high sensitivity to small scale housing’; the proposed development ‘projecting further into the open grassland’ and contrasting with ‘the rural character of the existing field’; and it conflicting with ‘the key characteristics of the area’, which would be ‘harmful to the High Weald National Landscape’.
Phil said: “The thing that struck us was the irony of it, that you have 500-odd guys moving in to the army camp, which is far closer to the forest than we are, and we get turned down because of the impact.”
The appeal decision mentioned the army camp, calling it ‘temporary accommodation on a separate site’ which is ‘functionally distinct from permanent dwellings such as that proposed’.
Phil said: “Of course, what they said was that (the army camp) was temporary. That was the difference, but we all know it’s going to go on for year.”
This newspaper recently reported that court papers relating to the use of the army camp as temporary asylum seeker accommodation show the Government has agreed to give it the option to stay open until 2030.
Phil and Christine Straker previously contacted the Sussex Express to voice their concern about the impact the asylum seeker accommodation plan has had on their lives.