Plan for 226 homes at Old Malling Farm: Friends of Lewes ‘strongly object’ to reserved matters in consultation response

Top Hat Communities Ltd recently submitted an application to South Downs National Park Authority for the approval of scale, layout, external appearance and landscaping (SDNP/23/04659/REM).

Outline planning permission was granted in March 2022 for homes, public open space and associated infrastructure at the site on Old Malling Way (SDNP/18/06103/OUT), as well as access for vehicles and pedestrians from Monks Way.

A consultation period for this major plan ran until Friday, January 26, and The Friends of Lewes submitted a response.

They said: “The Friends of Lewes strongly object to these reserved matters.”

The society expressed concern about the main vehicular access off Monk’s Way, saying this would be at the most northern and ‘most remote’ part of the site. They said: “The Society considers it essential that a practical third access point at the most southerly part of the site must be included within the development.”

The society said this would let the development’s residents ‘adopt more sustainable journey choices’ by improving accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists to the town.

The society is also concerned about the ‘dominance of the proposed road layout’, which incorporates ‘what is effectively a ring road’ around the site. They said an alternative road ‘hierarchy’ would encourage traffic to slow down in denser parts of the housing areas. They added: “The proposed layout does not engender any sense of a community, as there is no provision of any focal points within the site that could both encourage outdoor group activities and provide locations where residents could gather.”

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The society is also against dwellings being arranged in terraces with vehicle access directly from a distributor road. They said this would ‘act as barriers for the residents to be able to integrate across different parts of the site’. They added that the terraces could look like a wall from afar.

The Friends of Lewes response also voiced concerns about ‘a distinct lack of trees’ and the proposed density of buildings being ‘very high for an out-of-town development’. They added that there would be ‘considerable challenges’ in dealing with foul and surface water drainage at the development.

The society raised some concerns about the ‘modular construction’ of the homes too, questioning whether ‘pre-fabricated’ buildings made off-site and transported to Lewes would be truly sustainable. They said: “The Society strongly recommends that all external finishes (of housing units) should use locally sourced traditional materials, as the site is located within the South Downs National Park.”

Top Hat Communities Ltd has been approached for comment directly.

The design and access statement prepared by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris for TopHat, said: “As the UK’s leading ultra-low embodied carbon home builder, our vision is to create homes that are sustainable to build, beautifully designed and that are affordable to live in. TopHat create beautiful, sustainable homes using highly automated production processes in a high-tech manufacturing facility.”

The statement said this technique offers benefits including: “Dramatically less transport to site and therefore less emissions, less disruption to neighbours, less pollution and waste, greater safety for our teams, and greater cost and programme certainty.”

It added: “Modular construction provides greater control measures, homes are precision-built to a high and consistent quality repeatedly.”