Bexhill Link Road – Shock Decision

The Planning agenda for both Rother and Hastings has been shaken to the core by the Secretary of State for Transport finally after ten years’ of valiant campaigning against by the local CPRE and other bodies including the Hastings Alliance, deciding to give the go ahead to the severing of the Coombe Haven SSSI and much more unique countryside by the Bexhill Hastings Link Road. Not only will the road be a massive waste of national and local taxpayers’ money as it will at least at one end (Baldslow Down) be not reaching its intended destination – the A21, its justification has been so far as ESCC is concerned is that it will open up areas for housing and commercial development. Yet the proof of the wrongness of the decision is that no developer who has been contacted has indicated any willingness at all to contribute their own money to the cost of the road. Arguably the only one small blessing – if the road does actually get built - is that it will relieve some of the pressure on rural villages in Rother who would otherwise have to accept large numbers of houses up to the end of the plan period in 2026.

NPPF

The effect of NPPF should be to spur both Hastings and Rother to finalise their development frameworks because the tighter their frameworks, the less the vague NPPF can be used by developers to dump inappropriate development on our countryside.