All five district and borough councils in East Sussex are putting their new local plans out for consultation this autumn. These plans are important because they set out where housing and other development will go in your local area for the next decade.

Each plan takes many years of work. It’s unusual for so many to be at this stage all at once, but the flurry of activity this autumn is driven by a looming government deadline of 31st December. After this, Local Plans must be rewritten based on new national planning policy introduced by the government, which imposes even higher housing targets that are almost impossible to meet.

Sussex Wildlife Trust strongly supports a plan-led development system, and we will be making sure the Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes, Rother, and Wealden local plans include nature positive policies. We want to see local plans that promote the delivery of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, protect designated wildlife sites, require higher biodiversity net gain then the 10% statutory minimum and push for nature-based solutions to challenges such as flooding and coastal erosion.

However, the reality is that local councils are being forced to deliver huge numbers of houses and many of the sites being put forward for development (known as housing allocations) will be controversial. There are too many for us to comment on them all, so we have to prioritise allocations that impact our nature reserves and other sites designated for their wildlife value, particularly local wildlife sites. There will be many others we’re unable to comment on within the tight consultation timeframes – but that’s where you come in.

The local plan consultations are open to everybody, and we would love you all to take action and use your own local knowledge to give nature a voice in your area. Each of the local councils will provide guidance on how to respond to their local plan and what types of responses will have the most impact.

The Weaden Local Plan consultation started this week – the deadline to comment is 5pm on Monday 2nd November. 

We know that the Eastbourne Local Plan consultation will run from Friday 2 October to Friday 13 November.

We’ll put out updates when the other local plan consultations go live and try to provide as much information as possible to help you respond, but the most valuable input comes from local knowledge. For more support, please head to the Sussex Planning Network for Nature where there is a community of interested people taking action on planning issues in Sussex.