Friends of Lewes has been in consultation with Human Nature regarding the proposed Phoenix Development since early 2021. Members of the Executive Committee, and the Trees Committee, met with representatives of Human Nature on no less than nine occasions before making our submission to the SDNPA portal, detailing which aspects of the proposals we support, and which are areas of concern.
For example, while the removal of some of trees within the Tree Preservation Order to the North side of Phoenix Causeway may have been accepted for the previous Santon development in December 2015, our local councils now recognise that the climate emergency makes the ecosystem values of established trees even more important.
This, together with the introduction of new planning policies and legislation since December 2015, amounts to a material change of circumstances against which all new planning applications must be considered as a priority.
Following the preliminary response by SDNPA to Human Nature’s hybrid planning application for the Phoenix site on 12th June 2023, Human Nature have informed us that they are working hard on a range of amendments to their proposals in response to the National Park comments and these will be completed by early September. Meanwhile, they have agreed that further meetings between Friends of Lewes and Human Nature should be postponed until that work is completed and there is a chance to assess the outcomes.
1 August 2023
The Friends of Lewes response to Human Nature’s application – News item 20 May 2023
Friends of Lewes Response to Human Nature’s Phoenix Planning Application of February 2023 [17 May 2023, pdf 242KB]
Image from Human Nature’s email, 27 April 2023
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