Help protect the Sussex countryside
… and stop Eton College from building a 3,000-home new town on beautiful, rural farmland
Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign
The scheme
Eton College plans to build a 3,000-home new town in beautiful open countryside right on the edge of the South Downs National Park. The scheme will devastate a tranquil, nature-rich, deeply rural area bordered by three tiny villages (pop. 500). The scheme - already dubbed “unfeasible and undeliverable” by Lewes District Council - would damage the landscape of the area forever.
Traffic
Local villages are already jammed at peak times and most local roads are tiny single-track lanes. A new town would take up to 30 years to build and generate some additional 3.5m extra car journeys a year.
The scheme would also engulf the tiny villages of East Chiltington, Plumpton and South Chailey.
The location
Dark Skies
The South Downs National Park is one of only 25 International Dark Sky Reserves in the world.
Environment
The ancient hedgerows, woodland & farmland provide essential habitats & corridors for wildlife. It can’t be “mitigated” - it would be gone forever.
The scheme would deal a death blow to the fragile ecology of a very special area of Sussex downland.
Run-off and pollution would have a devastating effect on the rare sea trout population which spawns in the Bevern chalk stream..
Lack of infrastructure
In an area already prone to severe flooding, a new town would only increase this. It would also put unfeasible pressure on underground chalk aquifers & generate unsustainable levels of sewage.
