Plans for 190 homes on farmland east of Uckfield will now be decided by a government inspector after negotiations between council planners and the developer broke down.
Croudace Homes applied last summer to build the homes on the Bird in Eye Farm. Wealden District Council asked them to withdraw the scheme because they intended to decline to determine it.
A previous scheme for 290 homes was previously refused on appeal in 2023, because it would harm ancient woodland and highway safety and worsen the risk of flooding.
However, the inspector in that appeal did say the site was a suitable location for housing in principle.
Councils can refuse to process applications under certain circumstances, including if they are too similar to previously refused plans.
The scheme was then reduced to 190 homes, and submitted to the council on 31 July.
The council said if Croudace withdrew the latest application within two days, it would refund the application fee – but if it didn’t, it would keep the fee and officially decline to determine it. The council would typically charge more than £50,000 for an application of this type and size.
However Croudace said this was unfair and did not withdraw the application. The council did not officially decline to determine it, and as the deadline has now passed, Croudace was able to lodge an appeal.
Croudace’s appeal statement, written by Woolf Bond Planning, said: “The appellant considers that is a clearly unfair manner in which to proceed, and remains unable to understand the concerns that both purportedly trigger … the exercise of its discretion to decline the council thinks it has (though noting that the council itself is of the view such a decision is ‘not without some risk’).”
The council told Croudace its main issues with the application were about the northwest and southwest corners of the site, and its effect on trees, heritage and design.
Croudace argues that because Uckfield hasn’t identified enough sites to meet its housing targets, its scheme should be approved because it provides much-needed homes.
It says the new scheme no longer has housing south of the woodland, and so no footpaths are needed through it, and buildings close to the listed Oast house have been removed.
The usual imbecilic rhetoric from developers such as “ much needed” “ unfair “ and several more.
Let me explain that “unfair” or as also often claimed “unreasonable” is to decimate a location for the sake of profit. Uckfield does not have a housing crisis. There are approaching 1000 permissions granted Taft are not being built as there is no need