Councillors in Wealden have turned down plans for house building at Coopers Green.
At Thursday’s meeting on April 9, Wealden District Council’s Majors Planning Committee threw out an outline application requesting permission to erect up to 75 homes on land lying to the north of Buxted Road.
The scheme, put forward by Robin Nathan alongside development promoter Catesby Strategic Land Limited, had secured backing from the council’s planning officers.
That backing related partly to the argument that because the council lacks sufficient housing land supply, the scheme qualified for the presumption in favour of sustainable development principle contained within national planning law.
These regulations, frequently called the tilted balance, require local authorities to approve development proposals unless the adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh their benefits.
Planning officers had concluded that no such preventing adverse impacts existed.
Objectors to the scheme argued the plans would place significant pressure on local services, result in unwanted coalescence of separate communities, and harm several designated heritage assets, including various protected structures.
Comparable concerns were raised in remarks delivered on behalf of Buxted ward councillor Graham Shaw of the Green Party. He pointed out that the location had recently been assessed as a potential development area through procedures connected with Wealden’s local plan.
He stated that the finding was that the location proved inappropriate for residential construction and subsequently has not featured in subsequent versions of the local plan.
He added that the assessment also addressed the closeness of Grade II listed buildings and a Grade II listed park and concluded it is believed that residential construction in this area would adversely affect the countryside setting and character of Five Ash Down/Coopers Green and Buxted Park.
He acknowledged that the local plan remains unadopted and therefore carries minimal weight, though one of the considerations supporting a decision at the previous committee gathering was that the site had been allocated within the draft local plan.
Cllr Shaw referenced a planning inspector’s decision to dismiss development at the adjacent Walled Garden site, citing concerns about impacts on some of the same designated heritage assets.
He contended that these factors supplied adequate grounds for refusing planning permission, even given the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
The committee received advice from officers against adopting this position.
Stacy Robins, the council’s head of planning and environmental services, remarked that it is accurate that the site was set aside because of heritage sensitivity.
He explained that part of what was read from the assessment was correct, but it continued stating that there was an active planning application submitted and that is the application currently under consideration.
He added that the assessment therefore indicated note, there are complexities regarding heritage sensitivity, additional work was necessary and that would occur through the planning application that would bring forward these matters.
He clarified that these heritage matters had been explored through the application process, with the impact of the proposals on each of those assets ultimately judged to cause less than substantial harm and therefore inadequate to outweigh the development’s benefits.
Proposing refusal, Cllr Greg Collins of the Green Party argued that the decision ought to consider the cumulative effect of the development on those heritage assets.
He observed that this location is surrounded by listed buildings, concentric rings of listed buildings, encompassing the Grade I listed St Margarets Church, the churchyard from which this site is visible. That church has existed here for a millennium looking across a valley toward a field where this site is proposed.
He noted that his wife reminded him over Easter that his reasoning that consuming just one chocolate causes no harm falls apart if he then works through the concentric rings of chocolates in the box.
He continued that if he causes less than substantial harm to one individual listed building and less than substantial harm to the adjacent one and the one next to that, he surely reaches a point where that less than substantial harm, collectively, becomes substantial.
Mr Robins stated this position would go beyond the recommendations from the council’s heritage specialist. He also cautioned that refusal on these grounds would likely provoke an appeal.
The committee decided to refuse planning permission over concerns about impacts on the designated heritage assets.
Additional information about the scheme can be found using application reference WD/2024/2481/MAO.