“Where development is planned close to administrative boundaries, for example East Grinstead, neighbouring authorities will take the necessary steps to ensure that essential infrastructure is put in place to support development.”

  Download the  Relief Road Petition here!

  Download the  Relief Road Petition Leaflet here!

There are two possible ways to interpret these words, neither of which are acceptable. Either she expects us to facilitate a relief road that terminates north of the village at the Brambletye Bends, which would lead to a substantial increase in traffic through our village, or she’s expecting us to extend the proposed East Grinstead Relief Road past Forest Row onto Ashdown Forest. The only likely source of finance for a technically challenging and expensive extension onto the forest would be developer contributions from an excessive volume of new housing around Forest Row, similar in scale to the 2500 required in East Grinstead to finance their relief road.

A senior highways engineer for East Sussex County Council advised us earlier this year that extending this relief road onto Ashdown Forest would cost approximately £60M, and since there wouldn’t be any financial contribution from the government, it could only be financed by housing developers.

Learning the lessons

When East Grinstead residents were encouraged to support proposals for easing their traffic congestion with a relief road several years ago, no one explained that it would involve covering Imberhorne Farm and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the west with 2500 houses to pay for it. The idea grew wheels and quickly turned into a development juggernaut that residents are now desperately trying to stop, not least because traffic modelling studies have shown that it will not deliver the traffic relief originally promised.

We should learn from their mistake! But the Secretary of State is now trying to force us to follow their example in order to conform with the East Grinstead scheme, to make it work, and to deliver large house building quotas throughout the South East.

How many houses would be required in Forest Row?

Amongst the other proposed changes to the South East Plan was a 37% increase in the number of new houses Wealden will be expected to provide, up from 8,000 to 11,000. At this stage it’s impossible to say for sure exactly how many houses we’d have to build around Forest Row to finance a Relief Road extension, but it hardly bears thinking about when you consider that the village currently comprises around 1800 dwellings, and it would require approximately another 2000 to finance the construction of a major highway into technically challenging terrain, plus the essential community facilities that would be needed to support the influx of new residents.

What can you do?

The Secretary of State’s proposal is the subject of a public consultation that ends on 24th October. On the back of this leaflet you will find a petition, which we hope will be signed and supported not just by the residents of Forest Row, but the whole of North Wealden, including Hartfield, Nutley and Ashdown Forest residents, all of whom would be very badly affected by the impact and scale of these proposals.

Please take this home, and encourage your family and friends to support the campaign with their signature.

We are looking for one volunteer in every road / street in each of the villages in North Wealden to be an agent for the campaign by distributing a copy of this leaflet / petition, and providing a convenient drop off / pick up point for the family petition slips for that road.

Please contact us on 01342 826 896 if you would like to volunteer to be the distributor / collector for your road. We will provide you with a batch of leaflets specific to your road with your address quoted as the drop off point – or the central drop off points if more convenient.

IMPORTANT:  This campaign comprises a combination of A4 petition sheets in shops, and mini petition slips being delivered to individual addresses, it is very important that you only enter your signature ONCE, otherwise the integrity of the petition could be called into question if any duplicate signatures are discovered.

One little paragraph could do an awful amount of damage if it ends up in the South East Plan, our first priority is to stop that from happening. What we need instead is a sensible and sustainable volume of new housing for both East Grinstead and North Wealden, and a sensible and sustainable improvement to community infrastructure to support it. This will be the subject of a separate community questionnaire being distributed shortly.

Sincerely,
Cllrs David Jonas & Vania Phitidis