Alarm at Catsfield ‘Center Parcs’ Plan
By David EP Dennis
The property development company Greystoke is drawing up plans for an extensive holiday complex on the historic Normanhurst Estate in Catsfield.
It would contain 240 holiday lodges, a spa, and other amenities, including a new theatre, and has been dubbed a kind of ‘Center Parcs Village’, covering nearly 180 hectares of the land which contains protected ancient woodland and bluebell woods.
The Normanhurst estate was originally founded by the Brassey family, who also donated the Brassey Institute to Hastings which now houses the central library.
Normanhurst Court before demolition
When Thomas Brassey died in St Leonards in 1870 aged 65, he had become one of the most influential engineers of the Victorian era. He was reputed to have built ‘most’ of the world’s railways. Certainly, in Europe, North America, Australia, India and South America he was said to have been responsible for one in every 20 miles of track, and in Britain, one in every three miles.
It made him a fortune amounting to some £600 million in today’s equivalent and enabled him to buy the land which became the Normanhurst Estate a few years before his death. His son, Lord Thomas Brassey, developed the estate and built the now demolished baronial Normanhurst Court in the style of a French château.
The estate was recently sold to Greystoke for £5 million. They are a privately owned property and investment company based in Oxford, whose portfolio includes more than five thousand homes and eight million square feet of commercial space. Greystoke says the Normanhurst development will have a “contemporary aesthetic with simple geometric forms and a dark colour palette to enable the lodges to meld into the landscape”. They claim their proposals will restore the landscaped grounds to their former glory and bring “significant benefits to the local area including extra visitor spend in the local economy, supporting the local cultural sector and the establishment of a new theatre”.
Greystoke’s visualisation of part of the holiday complex
However, some local people are concerned it would completely alter the landscape and in particular views from the 1066 Country Walk public footpath which runs right through the proposed development area, within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Many of the trees planted here by the Brassey Family have been marked for felling, and the Forestry Commission have been approached for a felling licence. As a consequence, Rother District Council has applied for a six-month temporary tree preservation order (TPO 433) while the forthcoming planning proposal is evaluated. Dr John Feltwell, an internationally respected scientist and biologist, lives in the area and caried out a full biological audit of the Catsfield area in November 2021. He has been the registered Tree Warden for Catsfield and Crowhurst for the last 30 years and expressed his deep concern that “all the trees here are under threat and need to be properly assessed within the aim of making the temporary tree preservation order permanent.” He goes on to say that a CAVAT assessment for the parish (Capital Asset Value for Amenity Trees) should be undertaken now to ascertain the value of the finite and most precious tree resource of the Normanhurst Estate.
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