Item for Full Council – 9th March 2021

Since the last Full Council I have attended the following meetings; (all virtual):

1. WDALC Association Meeting: 13th January 2021:

This Meeting offered 2 interesting speakers – Alice Matthews, Service Manager, Mediation Plus, and inspector Jon Gross from Police – The results of their discussions are set out in the minutes attached, with updating on the Community Safety Action Groups, for example.

The meeting continued with updates from Wealden DC, not least regarding the Covid-19 position; Wealden operations; the Wealden Hub; the Local Plan Direction of Travel; and the fact that Wealden are not increasing their share of Council Tax, and nor are staff salaries or councillors’ allowances increasing.

Feedback from the Parish Conference was also sought, which had been generally positively received, especially as it had been carried out on a virtual basis.

2. Wealden Central East Parish Cluster Meeting: 25th January 2021: Attended by representatives from the 7 parishes in our Cluster, comprising , , , Warbleton, East Hoathly with Halland, and Laughton.

The Meeting discussed all the key planning issues associated with our Councils, not least the amount of new residential development being approved in the District, especially in our Cluster parishes such as Horam, Hellingly and East Hoathly.

The Meeting was also preparing for the meeting with Wealden Chief Planners, discussing questions to be asked at the meeting; (questions having already been tabled).

3. Cluster Meeting with WDC Chief Planners: 26th January 2021.

The meeting went through a wide range of questions asked of Wealden Planners, as part of their preparation for their New Local Plan, and the associated Direction of Travel consultation. The Wealden Chief Planners are Chris Bending and Stacey Robins.

We focussed on issues relating to: planning in rural parishes; the need for much better infrastructure; green issues in the context of Wealden’s declared ‘Climate Emergency’; and close involvement in the preparation of the Local Plan.

We also wanted to see Wealden working closely with all the clusters to ensure their views were fully represented, but also so that there was dialogue and communication between the Clusters, which had hitherto been lacking.

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Wealden were not over-enthusiastic about such linkage at clusters’ meetings, preferring rather to focus on individual clusters and bringing it all together at the Parish Planning Panel Meetings.

However, they acknowledged that take-up on most of the clusters had not been anything like as enthusiastic as ours, and there was much more scope to improve this commitment and involvement for all the clusters as time goes by. They will be pushing for such improvements.

4. Wealden Central East Parish Cluster Meeting: 22nd February 2021:

The meeting focussed primarily upon analysing the meeting with Wealden’s Chief Planners, feeding back, and looking forward to Wealden's published results of the Direction of Travel consultation, which Chris Bending had promised us.

A further meeting with Wealden Chief Planners has been arranged to discuss these findings, and to facilitate the Cluster Group’s agreement to further questions to be asked, and issues to be discussed at the next Meeting.

The Meeting also focussed on the dialogue relating to the Direction of Travel consultation for the Local Plan (to which there had been 1,700 responses eventually, after a slow uptake initially), and Wealden’s continued granting of planning permission for development, which they do not consider disproportionate in the villages.

The Cluster Group were concerned that this rural and other development is being allowed in advance of the adoption of the Local Plan, or completion of Local Neighbourhood Plans, whilst acknowledging Wealden’s housing deficit.

Once again, more substantial new housing is being approved at Hellingly, Horam and East Hoathly, in our Cluster. So far, Heathfield (recently) has not experienced such a proportionate level of growth, but it is anticipated that the application for close to 100 houses at Ghyll Road will be resubmitted.

Cllr. Patrick A. Coffey - 1st March 2021

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