This green land separates the villages, sustaining their essence as distinct communities. Its loss to housing, putting aside the issues of stretched essential services etc., would accelerate a gathering urban sprawl on the Eastern fringes of the city. Further, the field contains rare chalk-downland flora and fauna and acts as a stepping stone for wildlife, connecting increasingly fragmented green spaces on our city fringes.

Save our Deans has engaged with local politicians of all parties and on 8th May held a demonstration outside the Brighton and Hove Town Hall before presenting the council with a petition signed by more than 1600 people. CPRE Sussex is pleased that it has been able to offer the support of an experienced planning professional to assist Save Our Deans in the preparation of the case why the Lightwood plan is the wrong proposal in the wrong place. The Save our Deans campaign may be followed on saveourdeans.co.uk

CPRE Sussex does, however, very much recognise the need for more housing in the city. CPRE was largely supportive, albeit with some reservations on certain detail, of the original city plan proposal that allowed for 11,300 new homes throughout the city. Following the rejection last December of this plan by the National Planning Inspectorate, who indicated a target of around 20,000 new homes, the city is expected to produce its revised draft plan in June this year. There will inevitably be immense pressure on all green space, both within the city proper and on the urban fringes. During the consultation period, anticipated to be from June until September, CPRE will seek to influence where it can, supporting actively the re-use of brownfield land in the city, both to try and limit the loss of green land such as in Ovingdean, and to bring back to life sites in the city currently lying idle and barren.

It is worth re-iterating that, under current legislation, the “signing off” of a city plan does provide a degree of protection for green land that is excluded from the plan. Without such a plan, it is almost fair to say that “anything is up for grabs”. The critical issue for Brighton & Hove is to identify a pipeline of brownfield land for the coming years.

Andy Wright

May 26th 2014