Please see the latest news attached from Wealden District Councillor Graham Shaw.

The Local Plan and the Owlsbury development

The final consultation on the Local Plan closed on 2^nd November. The current timetable requires any necessary changes to the draft to be made in the next month, then for the Cabinet to decide if it wants to ask the whole Council to approve the draft and send it off to the Planning Inspectorate and lastly – if the Cabinet does want that – for the Council to vote on it. If the Council approves the draft, the Planning Inspectorate will arrange for a public hearing in Wealden (probably at East Sussex National) some time next year. Currently the Cabinet (and Council, if required) are due to make their decisions on 17^th December.

Until a couple of weeks ago, our government-imposed deadline for submitting the draft Plan was 31^st December. Out of the blue, we’ve been given another 3 months, i.e. to 31^st March 2027. We don’t want to delay, because if the Plan is to go ahead, the sooner we send it in the sooner we should have the public hearing. However, East Sussex Highways department raised major objections to the Owlsbury development about three weeks ago (available on the Council’s website). If the developer can’t deal with those objections satisfactorily, the Plan may need revision, which in turn may mean that the extra time comes in very handy.

Wealden recognised as very good landlord

Unusually these days Wealden owns about 3300 homes. The Regulator of Social Housing spent about 5 months this year investigating every aspect of our performance as a landlord, and we were awarded the highest grade available. We’re the only council in Sussex (including Brighton & Hove) to have achieved this, and it puts us among the top 20% of council landlords in England. While the Alliance has supported the expansion of social housing in the face of considerable financial and government policy obstacles, it’s the officers in the housing department whose dedication has played far and away the largest part in obtaining this distinction. Unfortunately, investment in building social housing remains pitifully low despite the housing crisis being faced, particularly by young people and families.

Crowborough Camp

The saga continues! We received a bland reply from the government saying that our letter about urgency would be shown to the Minister before she made her decision. The next we heard was that she had decided that the conditions about urgency had been satisfied, so the Urgent Crown Development application to continue using the Camp to 2030 could go ahead – IE it would not go through the local planning application process. We have now received the full application, which you can see here - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/urgent-crown-development-application-crowborough-training-camp .

The Council’s role is limited to commenting on the application, which we will be doing once the Minister asks for comments, and passing on any comments we receive from the public. If you want to comment, please email planning@wealden.gov.uk and put ‘Crowborough Camp Urgent Crown Development application’ in the subject line of your email.

Ward Budget

I still have about £500 in my budget for use locally. Anyone interested please contact me.

Graham Shaw, Alliance for Wealden