Decision deferred on 220 Hailsham home development to await more information from Southern Water

On Thursday (June 1), Wealden District Council’s Planning Committee South considered a reserved matters application on plans to build 220 homes on land to the north of Mill Road.

The scheme had been granted outline planning permission in 2020, meaning the principle of developing the site had already been agreed. Committee members, however, had concerns about the impact of the houses on the local sewerage network.

In its response to the application, Southern Water had acknowledged it would only have sufficient capacity to allow 50 homes to join its network without carrying out reinforcement works. However, it had not raised an objection, saying it would carry out this work should the development go ahead.

Committee members were not reassured by this response. Those to raise concerns included Cllr David White (Ind, Hellingly), who said: “I regret to say the record of Southern Water in fulfilling its promises has not been very good in this area

“We’ve got many sites around the town where we have granted planning consents on the assurance that Southern Water will work with the developers over a 24 month period to deliver those improvements. I haven’t seen those improvements.”

In light of their concerns, the committee opted to defer their decision, with the aim of asking Southern Water to provide details of what improvement works it would need to undertake and when they would take place.

The decision was made despite some strident warnings from council planning officers.

Stacey Robins, Wealden District Council’s head of planning, said: “Ultimately, we can’t hold Southern Water to account by holding back planning decisions.

“What would happen, I suspect, is the developer would either appeal against non-determination or we end up here next month with a letter from Southern Water that says ‘well, we told you reinforcement works would need to be done and we’ll do that as part of the phasing delivery of the development.’

“That is what they will say to you and you will be back in a month or in a couple of months asked to take the same decision. In the meantime we will probably have a planning appeal and inspectors treat this in a very binary way.”