New Wealden ‘garden villages’ put forward as one option to meet housing requirements

At a meeting next Tuesday (November 17), Wealden councillors are set to consider launching the first of several public consultations on the creation of a new local plan – a document which guides development within the district. 

Known as a direction of travel consultation, this first public consultation will see the council seek views on what should be covered by the plan’s policies and what they should aim to achieve. 

One area of the consultation is likely to prove more contentious than most, however, with residents asked for their views on where the council should focus on creating new developments.

A draft version of the consultation (which has not yet been signed-off by councillors) puts it this way: “Through the existing Wealden District Core Strategy Local Plan, as well as extant planning permissions, an existing supply of both business development and housing sites have been confirmed, which will contribute to achieving some of Wealden’s development needs in the future. 

“However, as recognised elsewhere in this document, we will require further significant growth to accommodate all our requirements.

“At this stage, these growth options are not about specific sites or locations of where new growth should take place, but at the highest level the options for how the district may develop – should we seek to deliver all the growth in one or more strategic locations, should we spread the growth to all corners of the district, or somewhere in between.”

The consultation goes on to lay out four potential options for this growth. These include focused large scale development for the largest, most sustainable, settlements within the district, such as Hailsham and Uckfield. This would see only limited development for the rural villages. 

On the other end of the balance, the plan could lead to development sites being spread out across all of the communities within Wealden, including some of its smallest villages. 

Another option could be a half-way house between, where the district’s towns still took the majority of the new development, but the larger villages would take a greater share. 

Alternatively, the consultation also suggests the option of creating new free-standing settlements around the district. This option would see the creation of one or two “garden villages” made up of around 2,000 to 5,000 homes, plus other business, employment, community and leisure sites. 

All of the options have their advantages and disadvantages, and are each likely to have a share of opponents and advocates as the process moves forward.

Among other areas, the consultation also seeks views on how local plan policies should address environmental issues, particularly in light of the council declaring a climate emergency last year.

The council is suggesting a broad range of potential policies in this area, including requirements for energy efficiency measures on new developments.

The consultation also seeks views how the plan can lead to the protection of the landscape and environment of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), while simultaneously providing the growth required within the district. 

These policies could include a criteria-based policy for allowing development in the countryside, the draft consultation says.

The consultation comes after the council’s previous attempt to replace its current local plan fell apart in December last year, as a planning inspector found that it had failed in its legal duty to cooperate with other local authorities in drawing up its policies.

Faced with no path forward and limited grounds to challenge the inspector’s decision, the council opted to withdraw the plan in February this year.

While this withdrawal might have been inevitable following the inspector’s decision, the failure of the local plan left the council in a difficult situation as its existing local plan is considered to be “out of date”, meaning that it can only have limited weight in planning decisions.

This is perhaps most evident in the lack of strong development boundaries, which previously would have given grounds to oppose building on the edges of some settlements where it was not considered appropriate.

Despite this, the process of creating a local plan is a long one, with even the most ambitious timeline putting the completion date some way off in 2023.

A draft local plan is currently expected to come forward sometime in spring 2022. This draft plan, which would begin to have some limited weight in the planning process, would also be subject to public consultation.

It is proposed for the public consultation to run between November 23 and January 18, although this is yet to be confirmed.

Huw Oxburgh , Local Democracy Reporting Service