High Weald: we make submission to consultation on revised management plan

CPRE Kent joins with Sussex in encouraging more environmental and biodiversity initiatives

CPRE Kent and CPRE Sussex have submitted a joint representation to High Weald AONB’s consultation on a five-year update to its management plan.

We support the achievements of the AONB Unit in managing and maintaining this treasured asset – work for which it receives woefully inadequate funding. Our submission makes positive suggestions 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.

Among 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 they merit.

There is a crisis in rural affordable housing for local people in the area 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 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