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CROWHURST NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN SURVEY RESULTS

CROWHURST NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN SURVEY RESULTS

A big thank you to everyone who took part in our second village wide survey this summer. It was great to see so many people at the presentation of the results on the 8th July. We received 301 individual responses to the survey exploring views of the shortlisted sites and 169 households responded to the housing needs survey. We have now analysed all the results and read all your comments. Below is a brief summary of the survey results, the full report is available on our website www.crowhurstneighbourhoodplan.org

Shortlisted sitesThe five shortlisted sites that are being explored for housing development are:

Site A: Field to the West of Forewood Rise combined with Paddock Area to the South of Forewood Rise.
Site B: Coombe Dell (site of existing bungalow plot), located on East-side of Forewood Lane, immediately South of the Railway Bridge.
Site C: Land on the Eastern-side of the Southern-half of Station Road, extending to existing farm buildings.
Site D: Wooded Area to East of Station Car Park.
Site E: Land to the South of the Footpath which is a continuation of Plough Lane, between the rear of the Plough Pub car park and up to and including the corner with Royal Oak Lane.


We asked respondents to rank each site in order of preference. Site A received the most first choices giving it the highest average ranking at 3.37, closely followed by site C at 3.27 and site B at 3.19. Around 20% of respondents did not feel any of the sites should have housing on.

Views on how many homes would be acceptable varied from 6 to over 20 for each site except Site B which can only fit 15 homes and site D which can only fit 6 homes.
Semi detached houses were the most preferred style for all sites except site D where apartments, flats or maisonettes were preferred. 73% of respondents felt that 30% or more of the new homes should be one or two bed.

EnvironmentMinimising flooding, maintaining views and protecting trees are felt to be very important for over 80% of respondents.

78% of respondents think the inclusion of landscape measures to promote the movement of wildlife is very important while less respondents (60%) felt designing in biodiversity features such as nesting boxes is very important.

The inclusion of renewable energy and features to reduce heat loss are important to respondents but less so than the other environmental issues.

Road Safety and ParkingJust under half of respondents feel the recreation ground/ blacksmiths field area is in need of pavements (48%) and traffic calming (49%). Chapel Hill and Ballards Hill to Station Road are also felt to be priority areas for pavements.

The school, village hall, church area is felt to be in need of traffic calming by 42% of respondents. 20mph zones are the most popular choice of traffic calming measure.

On street parking is mainly an issue for respondents in the school, church, village hall area.
Two off street parking spaces are felt to be sufficient for homes with 2 bedrooms or more.
There is support for the inclusion of general policies to improve off street parking, alleviate on street parking and improve amenity and community facility parking.

Community Life  The vast majority of respondents would like to see a new (55%) or refurbished (37%) village hall and a refurbished (40%) or new (34%) youth club.63% would like to see the new or refurbished village hall on its current site. 67% would like to see the new or refurbished youth club on its current site.

Respondents are divided on whether the village hall and youth club facilities should be combined and opinion is also split on where a new combined building should be located.
Three quarters of respondents (75%) would support a rise to the parish precept (the part of your council tax bill that goes to the village) to help pay for a new or refurbished village hall, youth club or combined building.

The developers who build new homes in Crowhurst will have to pay a Community Infrastructure Levy. The amount they have to pay varies depending on the floor space of the new homes. We asked respondents what they would like to see this money spent on.  64% of respondents put community facilities in their top three choices for spending this money. 53% put traffic calming measures in their top three and 47% put pavements in their top three.

Housing Needs38 households (23%) said they themselves would like to move and of these 21 (55%) would like to stay in the village.

24 household respondents said they have someone (maybe more than one person) living with them who is likely to need to move to a separate home. 8 (35%) of these said they thought the people looking for separate homes would be likely to stay in the village, the same number would not stay and 7 (30%) didn’t know.

These results suggest 34 homes are needed for the people looking to move in to separate homes, 12 of these are likely to be in the village (35%) and another 10 may be in the village (30%). This represents 52% of households in the village so we could estimate double these numbers for the whole village.

Two bedroom houses are most needed for those looking to move themselves and those that have someone looking for a separate home. This could reflect the fact that of the households looking to move themselves the main reason for this is to have a smaller home that is more manageable.

Next StepsWe are holding public workshops to discuss the issues the survey raised on 20th and 29th August. At the same time further investigations into each of the proposed sites are taking place.

Over the next few weeks the Neighbourhood Plan Group will be using all this information and your feedback to help them to draft a first version of the plan. This draft plan will be subject to a village wide consultation in the Autumn.

Comments

Cllr Angharad Davies said…
Cllr Angharad Davies ESCC Chairman of CVCP CIC Board of Directors

In relation to Combe Valley Countryside Park, the new park boundary falls in line with the previous boundary which incorporates Crowhurst car park. There is no plan to change this demarcation. The importance of the CVCP as protected green space between Bexhill and Hastings should be recognised. Crowhurst provides one access point into the Park and this is considered to be important to the Park and of considerable value to Crowhurst village.
Thank you very much for that clarification.

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