Cuckfield play meadow: Residents vow to fight on after council grants permission for house

Will McNamee and Flis Irving after the planning committee meeting on Thursday

Cuckfield residents’ hopes of saving a much-loved play meadow in the village were quashed on Thursday when the council granted planning permission for a house to be built on the land.

But the residents, who have been involved in a five-year battle with the council over the land in Courtmead Road, have vowed to fight on.

Full planning permission was granted for a detached house to be built on the land to the west of Newbury. The northern half of the site falls within the Cuckfield Conservation Ara (CCA).

Flis Irving, who has spearheaded the villagers’ fight, said: “The battle continues over something which should never have been a battle.

“You just feel that despite being an individual against a council, that justice will prevail in the end, so if you keep fighting surely in the end somebody will say enough is enough, and they will be made to see sense. We are determined to carry on the fight.”

Mid Sussex District Council was granted planning consent to build a house on the parcel of land in 2013. The land was padlocked to prevent any public access to it. It has remained padlocked with no public access since this date.

The council rejected a community bid of more than £100,000 to buy back the land in 2014. Ms Irving, went on to successfully challenge the planning permission in the High Court, but in April 2015, the council again granted itself permission to sell the land. Ms Irving tried to buy back the land herself last year, but her bid was rejected.

Protesters in front of the padlocked entrance to the meadow in 2016. Photo by Derek Martin

A new application for the house was submitted by the council and was due to be heard in December last year, but was deferred ‘to allow additional information to be added to the committee report’ after planning officers were made aware of a request to the county council that sought to amend the definitive map and record a public footpath through the site.

Will McNamee has lived in the village all of his life. On Thursday he urged the council to do the ‘right thing and refuse the application’.

He said: "When I was growing up my friends and I played in the play meadow. We walked through it from Courtmead Road to Newbury Lane as part of the network of local paths.

"I used it again in the 1970s and 1980s to get to the allotments and saw lots of kids playing there.

The play meadow in Cuckfield. Photo by Derek Martin