Town to get 600 homes?

UP to 600 new homes could be built in Uckfield if plans announced last week are approved.

The proposal - which also includes an industrial estate, a second community college site, shops, community facilities and a doctor's surgery, on land off Snatts Road - was received by Wealden District Council on Friday.

However, substantial parts of the site would stay undeveloped and open for all to enjoy, according to planning consultants Evison and Company, who have drawn up the scheme on behalf of the Clarence Preston Trust which owns the land. The late Clarence Preston used to live on Downlands Farm.

The main access road into the new estate - at Downlands Farm, north west of Uckfield - would be via a new roundabout on the bypass.

Children's play space and additional playing pitches would be provided. Victorian parkland, formerly part of the Rocks Park Estate, would be restored and all the existing wooded areas retained, with the larger parts managed as a woodland park.

The site is 200-plus acres in size. One hundred of those are woodland and nearly 90 are set-aside agricultural land. A further 25 acres of woodland is severed to the west of the bypass.

The scheme is being promoted for inclusion in the Local Plan being drawn up for the years 2006-2011 and is the second proposal for major housing development in the town. The first presented was for 300 homes to be built on Harlands and Bird-in-Eye Farms to the south of town. Consultants Evison and Company say that an advantage of the Downlands Farm plan is that there is no risk to the site from flooding and the land drains to the west, away from Uckfield.

'After the disastrous flooding in October 2000 it is now vital to build any new development in an area which will not contribute to the existing flood risk,' said the company.

Wealden Council had signalled its intention to limit new housing in the Local Plan to 500 homes for Uckfield because of problems expanding the community college. However, the consultants argue that planning guidance stipulates that infrastructure - including education provision - should follow from strategic housing provision rather than determine it.

And the consultants say there is a solution to educational constraints in Uckfield through making provision for an extension to the college on their site.

'Indeed, the proposals will bring benefits to the school by overcoming some of the existing space limitations, problems which would be exacerbated by the addition of 500 dwellings envisaged by the council as the "absolute limit" on development,' said their report.

Wealden planners have also stipulated that a strategic gap be maintained between Uckfield and Maresfield and this development would encroach into the gap.

But the consultant's report said that while development on the Downlands Farm site would reduce the area of the Countryside Gap the new development would be "substantially concealed". They suggested a revision of the gap boundary drawing it along the line of the A22 excluding Downlands Farm.