We have been working with campaign group Save Sandrock Bends in Hastings to make the case for conserving the nature corridor that connects St Helen’s Woods with the High Weald, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
A 3.88 hectare ‘development site’ has been assembled from parcels of land owned by East Sussex County Council, Hastings Borough Council, the Hastings Youth Trust and the local Veterinary Surgery, and is listed in Hastings Borough Council’s Local Plan for the development of 80 new homes (site SH1). However, the site allocation fails to take into account the site’s critical location and function as as link for wildlife between St Helen’s Woods and the High Weald, the benefits to local ecology of the site itself and the risks to St. Helen’s Wood of developing it. The ‘design brief’ proposed by the Council completely blocks the nature corridor used by mammals and insects, and will destroy habitat of dormice and several species of bats. The developer has now submitted an outline application, and the level of damage is made clear.
We have developed alternative strategy for development, which will maintain the nature corridor and protect wildlife. This relocates the new homes away from the central, most ecologically important part of the site, makes use of an existing road access and suggests an alternative development model. The developer’s proposal is for detached houses, with garages. We propose that most of the new homes are flats within a larger apartment block, drawing on the precedent of nearby Sandrock Hall, a country house converted into flats, alongside some houses arranged in short informal terraces around a central village green.
