Help protect the Sussex countryside
… and stop Eton College from building a 3,000-house new town on beautiful, rural farmland

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Roadside placards
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Where we’re at - August 2026
This week, Eton launched a PR campaign to garner support for its plans to build a huge new 3,000-house town at North Barnes Farm in East Chiltington. Via leaflets and letters, locals have been invited to a series of “consultation” events with the promise that they will be helping to “shape plans” for the massive 3,000-house development.

Our position remains – as always – that people should not attend these meetings. Developer-led consultations are designed to project an image of “community engagement” and are merely a tick box exercise. Instead, people should subscribe to our newsletter & follow our guidance on how to respond to official Council-led consultations once Eton has submitted a planning application.

Dates for your diary:

September 5: Eton is holding a North Barnes “consultation day” at Plumpton Racecourse. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND! Instead, please join us OUTSIDE THE RACECOURSE (at the Ashurst Lane entrance) from 10am-5pm. We especially want a big crowd from 11am-noon. We aim to make it clear we do not support the North Barnes scheme.

September 12: ⁠Please join us for our public Information Day from 10am-2.30pm at All Saints Church Annex, Plumpton.

What’s next
Eton will be submitted its planning application THIS YEAR. Lewes District Council has already excluded it from the draft Local Plan. However, if the Council fails to submit the Plan to central Government by the end of the year, it’s in a very precarious position.

The site, right on the border of the South Downs National Park, is HUGE and by far the biggest proposed development in the area. If you live anywhere near Plumpton, South Chailey or East Chiltington, this affects YOU.

Traffic chaos, decades of construction work, pollution, habitat loss and irreversible harm to wildlife and the environment ... these are just some of the reasons why this development must not go ahead - our primary concerns are set out below.

What you can do

The scheme

Eton College plans to build a 3,000-house 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.

Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign

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.

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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.