Fairlight sees off development plan – for now
Residents of Fairlight Cove were toasting Rother District Council and a public planning inspector last week when the news came through. The appeal by developers against refusal of their application for outline permission to build a 43-house estate on a field at the side of the village has been rejected.
It’s the latest twist in a four-year saga which has pitted a large proportion of the village population against the site owners Wakehams Farm – well-known for its farm shop on the coast road selling produce – and prospective developers Welbeck Strategic Land. Placards with slogans – Wake Up! To Wakehams and SOS Save Our Skies, a reference to the street lighting shown on filed drawings as intended to illuminate the proposed estate where none currently exists – have proliferated along the neighbouring hedgerows and driveways for much of the period. One frontage last week posted a freshly scrawled notice: WE WON – NOW ENJOY! But whether the appeal outcome will halt all attempts to build the village outwards remains to be seen.
Welbeck’s original planning application, made in 2018, was for 150 homes plus a new mini-market, a new GP surgery and the provision of further public open space, allotments and play areas. It attracted nearly 400 documented objections, the majority from the village itself, which accommodates less than 800 existing households. The objections centred upon Fairlight’s status within an AONB [Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty] and its lack of sustainable infrastructure, including poor transport links and problematic drainage.
Second proposal
The developers eventually got the message and withdrew the application before it was determined, submitting a more modest proposal in January 2020 for 43 houses on a reduced site of approximately eight acres. Their outline plan won the initial backing of the Rother DC planning officer subject to issues of access, landscaping and drainage being resolved at a later stage.
Southern Water, who had already confirmed that it had existing capacity problems during periods of heavy rain, filed evidence that suitable drainage systems could in principle be provided, though without explaining how.
But Rother’s councillors did not follow their officer’s direction. In a decision notice issued in March 2021 giving reasons for rejecting the application, they latched onto Welbeck’s detailed illustrative lay-out plan showing densely
ranged two-storey dwellings “uncharacteristic of Fairlight Cove village”. It would result, they concluded, in a “hard urban edge, failing to appropriately transition from the built-up area to the open countryside…out of character with and harmful to the landscape character and scenic beauty of the High Weald AONB”. The proposed development also lacked “social and community cohesion” – the village did not have sufficient shops, schools or other services to accommodate such a large development.
Flood water at Fairlight Cove
As to drainage, the Rother councillors, taking note of evidence from local residents and the analysis of independent engineering consultants, declared themselves unpersuaded that the existing sewerage system could cope. Given known capacity issues with foul and surface water drainage within the village, which Southern Water were already failing to resolve, how could the advent of 43 more households be successfully integrated?
Appeal hearing
Wellbeck’s appeal was heard on 19 July this year by a Mr Graham Chamberlain of the Planning Inspectorate in an auditorium of Bexhill Town Hall packed with over 75 Fairlight villagers rallying en masse to support the council rejection (two dozen others had to be turned away). Twelve third-party witnesses gave evidence. Less than three weeks later, the inspector sent his written decision.
First, he noted that, despite the continued strong feeling of many local objectors on the issue of foul water drainage, Rother was no longer basing its opposition on this aspect. Furthermore, under the Rother Core Strategy for housing development, the existing range of services within Fairlight Cove – a village hall, church, recreation ground, farm shop, country park and bus service – should facilitate further “limited growth”. The provision of 43 additional homes could not be described as outside that ambit.
There would be some residual harm to the AONB, but neither the density of the proposed development – not high by general standards – nor its location within a square surrounded on three sides by existing dwellings – put it out of sympathy in Mr Chamberlain’s opinion with the general character of and appearance of the village: the site is, he wrote, “likely to be one of the least-worse options for providing housing in a protected landscape”. As to street lighting, it had been confirmed at the hearing that it “would not be necessary”.
He found, however, that the developers had failed to address adequately the risk of ground water flooding. That was, in his view, a decisive factor against the development, “which should not be permitted if there are reasonably available sites…in areas with a lower risk”. Thus the appeal failed.
Water and sewerage flows
Where does that leave Wakehams and/or Welbeck in their development venture? They can go back to the drawing board. But no sleight of argument can push water uphill or change the topography of Fairlight Cove: at its base, a long, flat gradient that takes both rainwater and sewage remorselessly downhill towards Stream Lane, Marsham Sewer and eventually the Royal Military Canal.
Existing householders have complained vociferously for many years against Southern Water’s regular practice of allowing untreated sewage from the village houses to overflow into the watercourse. Pett and Fairlight Parish Council have repeatedly tried to obtain the discharge records from Southern Water in respect of their combined overflow sites (CSOs), but were told that the telemetry had been turned off for some years. A report written by Welbeck’s drainage consultants Stantec stated that “no details are currently available from Southern Water regarding the frequency and duration of overflow events”.
However, a document obtained by the Rivers Trust and provided by Southern Water to the Environment Agency identified 86 metered discharges over 555 hours from the four CSOs in Fairlight for the period of 2019-2020 alone. The Fairlight Waste Treatment Works was by far the biggest contributor of spills of untreated sewage into the watercourse, with over 49 discharges for a total duration of over 426 hours.
Mr Chamberlain remarked that it was not for the developers to make good a pre-existing drainage problem. Nevertheless it is difficult to understand how any further development could be allowed that will necessarily add to the sewage outflow before an overall solution has been found.
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