CAMPAIGNS

Subscribe

If you'd like to sign up to news and updates from WILD,

Please enter your details below

(NB: This won't commit you to anything, just email updates)

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Privacy Policy

Active Campaigns

Sayers Village and Hamlet

At the end of 2022 Mid Sussex District Council consulted on a draft housing plan which proposed that 2,000 (now 2,400)  houses should be built on agricultural land between Sayers Common and Albourne. This scheme poses a real threat to our environment and has no proper infrastructure plans to support it. It came as a nasty shock to local people who hadn’t been meaningfully involved. Sayers Village and Hamlet, as the developer, Berkeley Homes, calls it, has been seized on by the Council as a way of meeting their housing target. There’s no other reason to justify it, and the scheme flies in the face of national advice and guidance.  
click to zoom
Click for satellite view
Satellite image with overlays showing development.

The average number of people per household in the South East of England is 2.4.

The proposed developments total approx. 2,400 houses

2.4 x 2,400 = 5,760 new residents

 

This exceeds the population of Henfield in the 2021 census at  5,626 people!

 

 
While it is accepted that houses need to be built somewhere, the sheer scale is vastly out of proportion for this area. It appears Mid Sussex District Council Is trying to achieve its planning number by dumping an inappropriately large housing development on agricultural land with little regard for it’s impact. The combined developments would result in a settlement that would dwarf the villages of Albourne and Sayers common and would be larger than Henfield.  This flies in the face of everything the government is saying about preserving the integrity and character of rural villages and  building on brownfield sites. It would also cause havoc with local infrastructure in terms of schools, doctors surgeries and increased traffic on our already overburdened roads. Current problems with flooding would only be exacerbated. Although facilities may be promised, experience tells us that these rarely materialise.

Local people have had no involvement in developing this mad idea. It’s time we had a voice, and challenged Mid Sussex, who have shown they can’t be trusted to look after our interests. What’s more, the Council have another way out of the problem – if they have the courage to take it.  To find out how, read more here.

Current status

Mid Sussex revised their housing plan following the last consultation, and issued the next version. This lead into a further consultation – Regulation 19,  which ran from Friday 12th January until 23:59 on Friday 23rd February 2024. The council reviewed this information and the final planning inspection has begun. Read the news posts on our home page for the current situation.

How you can Help?

 

● Join us! If you would like to get more involved and join the WILD team, let us know via our Contact page.

● Subscribe to WILD and never miss out on the latest information

● Tell us what you know or hear via our Contact page.

● Contact your local councillors (you’ll find their details on our Who’s Who page)

– Ask them if they are aware of how the planning rules are changing.

– Ask them to press the Council to start work now on the case for a lower planning number.

– Ask them to push for it to be reflected in the next version of the plan.

– And ask them for their support in throwing out the Sayers Common Garden Village scheme.

Past Campaigns

LAMBS

A successful campaign by the LAMBS comittee, LAMBS was formed ten years ago to fight the plan of a developer, Mayfields Market Towns (MMT), to build a new town of more than 10,000 houses on land near Wineham and Twineham. MMT were very aggressive and well resourced, but LAMBS and local people proved to be more than a match for them. Mayfields were defeated and have gone away, However, they’ve sold their interest to Berkeley Homes, who are behind the Sayers Village scheme which threatens our community now

 

Read more ...

 Dr Roger Smith of Campaign to Protect Rural England …..“This is about people power, people defending their communities from predatory speculators who seek to impose a massive and inappropriate development on countryside.”