High Weald AONB Management Plan

The High Weald AONB is consulting on a 5 year update on its Management Plan.  CPRE Sussex and CPRE Kent have submitted a joint representation on these Plan update proposals.

We support the achievements of the AONB Unit in managing and maintaining this treasured asset – work for which they receive woefully inadequate funding.  Our submission makes a number  positive suggestions further to improve the draft Plan, and to assist in the effective promotion of its designated purpose to conserve and enhance the High Weald’s natural beauty as its other purposes.

Amongst other suggestions, we have called for the plan to recognise explicitly the economic value that should be attached to the benefits that the High Weald provides: the Plan objectives are a material consideration in planning applications that are not always given the weight that they merit.

There is a real crisis in rural affordable housing for local people in Sussex, and we want to see that prioritised over large market houses as well as standardised guidance on the inappropriateness of large-scale developments within the AONB.

We make a number of suggestions aimed at encouraging more environmental and biodiversity initiatives, and at widening public access to the High Weald.

You can read our submission in full here: CPRE Kent_CPRE Sussex combined comments on draft High Weald Management Plan