Development on Clavering Walk is too high risk

Having read the letter titled “Pevensey Levels Must Be Protected” by Jane Shaw in last Friday’s edition of the Bexhill and Battle Observer, I wanted to elaborate on her very important point regarding the obligation of protecting the Levels “in perpetuity”.

Surely the very fact that a sustainable drainage system (SuDS) with “at least six forms of treatment” is even deemed necessary, highlights the folly of proposing a housing estate on a field that floods and is adjacent to one of Britain’s most important and internationally protected wetlands. To compound this recklessness, another housing estate of 160 houses is being proposed at Spindlewood Drive, a field that lies diagonally opposite the meadow north of Clavering Walk. To its credit, the planning committee at Rother have refused planning permission at Spindlewood, but it remains to be seen if this will be appealed. It must be noted that any development at Spindlewood will also discharge water runoff into the same Cole Stream as the Clavering Walk development. The notion that any harm will not occur to the Pevensey Levels wetland “in perpetuity”, i.e., ever, beyond any reasonable scientific doubt is absurd; the bar being set this high is there for good reason, and should not be undermined or tested, particularly in order to enable a speculative and opportunistic development that is out of character with its surroundings and in the wrong location for the demographic to which it is aimed; at this end of Bexhill there are few job opportunities, 1 primary school that is full, 1 doctors surgery that is full, public transport infrastructure that is inadequate to the task that will be expected of it, and a road network that is already at capacity during peak periods, particularly the Little Common roundabout that bottlenecks the A259.

If high risk developments such as Clavering Walk and Spindlewood Drive are allowed to be pushed through, who will be held accountable for any damage to Pevensey Levels should things go wrong in the future? Who will be held accountable for injury to pedestrians, cyclists or children knocked over whilst having to use roads without footpaths that are inadequate to cope with the inevitable uplift in traffic volumes (Maple Walk and a section of Cooden Sea Road)?

The response from the local community thus far in voicing concerns and funding the appeal on the Clavering Walk site has been widespread and generous; a truly monumental effort by many to try and halt what is clearly seen as an unwanted and inappropriate development. The report from the Planning Inspectorate granting outline planning permission for the Clavering Walk development was utterly dismissive of local opinion; an arrogance and disdain of local taxpayers that I hope will not be repeated by our local planning committee when they come to consider and judge the Bellway proposals once the submission of the full planning application is eventually made.

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