wrong thing wrong place  logo

the Eton versus East Chiltington chronicles

In February 2021 the residents of East Chiltington learned that Eton College had plans to destroy their way of life by concreting over vast swathes of Sussex downland to build an unasked for and entirely unnecessary new town.
.
stop Etonbury - new town in East Chiltington wrongthingwrongplace.com


..
typist - STOP ETONBURY... I must get Uiop to add it to that list - name for a new town west of Lewes - yes he'll do it - he's almost like my right hand.
.
artist - hey typist! - you're not on mute. You seem to be talking to yourself again
.
typist - sorry I write notes to myself too
.
artist - that's one way of getting readers... it's a very small village isn't it?
.
typist - yes - all the good writers are busy doing letters
.
artist - . you seem to be repeating yourself too
.
typist no one's going to read my words anyway - when they see your new picture - it says it all.
.

Eton vs East Chiltington - first 17 weeks of news

no Eton New Town in East Chiltingtonhello Etongrad!
signs in the lanes
South Downs Eton by dog
Final Spring in Novington Lane?
consultation? - the burglar analogy
the simple ma££s of planning gain
1st cut to the new town - via Plumpton
news archive timeline - Feb to May 2021
DontUrbaniseTheDown - why our supporters object
the landscape survey assessment walks East Chiltington
.
the story so far - Friday - June 25, 2021

Property speculators working on behalf of Eton College want to build an entirely new town (3,250 houses that's the new offer - formerly bid in 2012 as 5,000 houses) on open farmland fields along the boundary of the South Downs in a rural parish (of 150 households) called East Chiltington which is half in and half out of the National Park... Chiltington? - the East was acquired in modern times to help the Post Office in the 19th century - is a place which sounds almost like a Saxon village in name - but true to its roots remains - astonishingly still extant- a sparsely populated handful of single track lanes, homesteads and micro hamlets which have (with a few exceptions) been scattered around the landscape in the way you see them now since long before the Norman Conquest.

East Chiltington? - never heard of it. That's why it's stayed special. And as a non nucleated village it retains the look and feel of a South East England scarped downland settlement which began to disappear elsewhere in the 14th century. Where is it? On the northern side of the South Downs National Park and 5 miles west of the city of Lewes in East Sussex. It's a 5 miles walk (or 11 miles drive) over the Downs from the Falmer campus of Sussex University.

The story timeline - chronicles the public's growing awareness of the Eton new town threat to Lewes - and what was being said about it - from the end of February (when it first flared up in local conversations in the lanes affected) upto June .

summary - in those first 4 months...
  • national newspapers and BBC tv visited East Chiltington and reported the story
  • every party candidate in the county council elections said they would oppose the scheme. Lewes MP Maria Caulfield she would oppose the Eton new town scheme and would call it in if necessary
  • Parish councils surrounding the communities in the harms spatter-zone of the Eton initiative agreed to work together to oppose Eton-Welbeck's hostile plans.
short term strategic outlook

The Axis forces now hold both ends of North Barnes Lane:- Fairfax at Plumpton, Eton-Welbeck at East Chiltington.

In the first half of July we expect to see a decision on the Fairfax plan at Nolands Farm and the start of so-called consultation by LDC on its new plans in which Eton-Welbeck will advocate that their site be included and favoured in the call for sites.
.

news about Eton Versus East Chiltington

see also:- timeline from 1st awareness to May 2021

.
ft article with no Eton new town poster in Chapel Lane
Editor:- June 25, 2021 - a new article in the FT - Battles loom as housing developers eye rural England - features in one of its photos a Don’t Urbanise The Downs poster staged in Chapel Lane, East Chiltington by the library.

Editor's comments:- the library (red phone box) is listed in - the World’s Most Charming Bookshops (February 2021) by travel blogger Ellie Seymour.

.
click to read the planning article by Rosie Pearson
Editor:- June 25, 2021 - a new article in NationalWorld by Rosie Pearson - co-founder of the Community Planning Alliance - reveals the scale of resources which rural residents - who are under attack by unwanted new town developments - may need to muster to defend their green spaces against concrEtonization. Among other things the article says...

"Rosie Pearson... cut her teeth in a campaign against the biggest new settlement proposed anywhere in England. The new town known as West Tey, with up to 28,000 homes was hugely unpopular with local people. The campaign group had to raise over £100,000 to fight 4 local authorities." ...read the article

Editor's comments:- Rosie won her campaign to stop the new town and has since been providing valuable insights to hundreds of groups around the UK.

You can keep up to date with her group's objector ninja activities by clicking on her name above and in the usual ways. DUTD has recently aligned with her meta campaign group and East Chiltington is on their map / radar.

.
the Bald Explorer video - Eton College Plans to build a New Town in Rural East Sussex
Editor:- June 21, 2021 - In a new episode of the Sunday Chat - Richard Vobes - discusses the Eton new town plans in East Chiltington. Among other things he says...

"It's just abhorrent that somebody can take what is farmland that has been farmed for centuries and they're the custodians of and then sell it prevent it from being farmed for future generations. It doesn't seem right. It doesn't settle with me at all that somebody can say no - from now on I'm the one that's going to make the decision and take a profit and not let anybody in the future farm on this piece of land."

Richard said in his Sunday Chat he'd publish a video of his walk around the Eton new town site on Monday. And he did. ...watch the video

.
Guardian news - Eton versus the sea trout in East Chiltington
A story in the Guardian (June 19, 2021) headlined - Eton v the sea trout: college's land sale sparks fears of river pollution - includes a statement from Sam St Pierre, vice- chair of the Ouse & Adur River Trust - who said...

"If the Bevern got further polluted, the trout here could disappear they could just go extinct in this particular stream. And we're not talking about acute pollution. We're talking about the kind of general low-grade pollution that you would get as run-off from urban development. If it degraded the spawning area, the sea trout could just disappear and a vitally important population could be wiped out." ...read the article

Editor's comments:- I used to see the sea trout in the Roman's winterbourne which ran through my garden in Chiltington Lane. OART were surprised how far up the water courses these fish had come when I showed them in 2016.

The first few times I saw them, I thought I had imagined it. They were swimming up the current between Christmas and New Year. But others saw them too and Sam St Pierre (quoted in the Guardian story) walked with me along the stream to see for himself the spawning area which in summer is just a bunch of ponds connected by the gravel bottom.

That's why the shade of trees along the banks is important too - apparently - to prevent the water temperature getting too hot. These fish, up to 2 feet long, swim all the way from the sea into Chiltington Lane. An amazing feat of nature. That's why we have to be careful about water runoff from hard surfaces.

The Eton site would terminate millions of years of nature's adaptations and co-survival with past inhabitants here who may have lacked Eton's grandeur but who were closer to the authentic realism of nature.

Protecting the sea trout was a pivotal part of an earlier successful campaign against a caviar farm development - which was orders of magnitude smaller and less damaging to the environment than the Eton slot machine town would be. The sea tout had their own signs and placards all along these lanes.

.
Consultation in developerspeak and greenwash

Editor:- June 18, 2021 - Consultation is a word which the residents of East Chiltington and Plumpton are going to get tired of seeing soon (adding to the weary list of Eton, new town, etc).

In a new article - consultation in planning - the burglar analogy - I take a serious look at what this word really means for objectors to the obnoxious plans which surround us.

I've based my interpretations on how I've seen "consultation" used in the wild in real planning applications by land developers and also by the planning department in Lewes District Council. ...read the article

.
How many more Sussexes can we afford to lose?

Editor:- May 17, 2021 - How many more Sussexes can we afford to lose?

GB lost an area of grassland to #urbanisation equivalent to the counties of Sussex and Suffolk combined in just 25 years - according to a satellite based research study by UKCEH.

One thing which doesn't help. £2 million / acre gain in value by land promoters getting planning permission to redesignate fields for houses in Sussex. (Source - UK gov data and developer's own press releases.) ...read more (on my linkedin page)

.
Eton Greed - the Eton vs East Chiltington chronicles - protest artwork #6
Editor:- June 11, 2021 - WrongThingWrongPlace.com today unveiled ETON GREED - a new artwork in the Eton versus East Chiltingon chronicles.

ETON GREED will be appearing in a number of specially created contextually related articles in coming days.

ETON GREED is #6 in the series - planning protest artwork in East Chiltington.

.
Argus brings smiles to residents changing Eton  College to Eaton
A story in The Argus (May 29, 2021) headlined - Residents slam Eaton College plans to build near South Downs - added some amusement to its reporting of the grisly Eton vs East Chltington chronicles with its re-spelling of the principal antagonist's name to "Eaton" (sic) in the main headline and also in a related photo caption - although these little touches may have changed by the time you read this.

Among other things the Argus report quotes an Eton-Welbeck spokesman who said...
"The plans being developed represent an innovative and sustainable response to the need for local housing. All development at scale in England is likely to be controversial but we are committed to engaging with our local partners, stakeholders and the community to develop our plans with the needs of the district and the wider area as a central focus."
...read the article

.

the landscape assessment walks in East Chiltington

What do you like in this landscape?

What makes you happy being here?

Do you recognise the dogs?

Was it really that long ago?
. the landscape survey walks in East Chiltington remembered

Editor:- May 20, 2021 - Published today - a new article - the landscape assessment walks in East Chiltington - looks back at an event which has particular relevance today - when we're thinking about what it is we're trying to protect. ...read the article

.
Plumpton Parish Council news
May 17, 2021 - Plumpton Parish Council announced that an Inter-Council working party has been formed to fight the Eton College 'New town' threat and will also work together to oppose any unplanned and unwanted development.

This group is made up of councillors from East Chiltington, Plumpton, Chailey, Hamsey, Barcombe, Wivelsfield, Streat, Westmeston and Ditchling.

.

No Eton New Town

say new signs in East Chiltington

no Eton New Town in East Chiltington
news:- May 10, 2021 - At the weekend signs began appearing in the lanes and hedges around East Chiltington to alert friends and visitors to the risk that this countryside they're enjoying now will be lost forever if Eton College succeeds with its devastating new town plan. ...read the story

.
earlier news reporting from the very start

.
....
say no to new town - wrong thing wrong place
Lewes Forum discussion on lewes.co.uk
Commuterton, ConcrEton, Covid Asylum, Downsview, Dunfarmin, East ChiltingTown, East Plumpton, Etonbury, Eton-cum-Chailey, Etongrad, Eton Mess, Etonot Green, Etonplex, Great Blighton, Gridlock, Least Chiltington, New Newick, No Eton New Town, Quidsinbury, Rurallerton, Wealdtown, West Cooksbridge, Wivelsfield Down, WrongThingWrongPlace,
.
East Chiltington looking at the Downs from the Northern edge of the Eton site
above - a view of the site
scroll down to see more
.
"The Eton scheme aims to subvert the local plan against residents' wishes to take advantage of flaws in the planning system which will earn $3 million / acre for changing the zoning from agricultural to housing for their 500 acre plot which they bought in the 1990s. New legislation... would make this carpet bagging harder. So it's a greed driven project which is already creating harm and anxiety in a small community. Intra-colonialization... if that's a word."
Zsolt Kerekes commenting on a Don't Urbanise The Downs post (on linkedin June 27, 2021).

.

Final Spring in Eton's new town zone?

views below as seen at and close to the Northern edge of the Eton owned site in East Chiltington (March 17, 2021)
....
stream running near Novington Lane East Chiltington
Final spring?... the headline I used above - does that remind you of something?

For me it was half a thought away from Silent Spring. I was going to leave it there.

Sound familiar? Evoke any ideas? I'm sure it does for many of you. If not... Well anyway - it does no harm to say more about it here. And we're getting closer to connecting some ideas.
East Chiltington looking at the Downs from the Northern edge of the Eton site
the new town site - March 17, 2021
Silent Spring is a book. Many would say it's the classic book which sparked the fire of the ecological movement.

Rachel Carson's book was published in 1962 and what it said still had the power to both sadden me and shock me to the core when I read it in the 1980s. If you haven't read it yet It's a true story by the way. I can tell you this without spoiling the plot - the villain of the story is the agro chemical industry and its indoctrination of farmers by scientific and economic sophistry to kill nature which got in the way of business.

How could they do that? I thought - when I read it. My education was in electronics not touchy feely biological stuff. The book made me angry that people could do such stupid things. Didn't they know better?

Of course - by the time I first read that book - 20 years had passed since its publication - and we ALL knew better - mostly because of the impact that Carson's book and the movements it helped to educate had filtered through into the public at large.

What's Silent Spring got to do with Eton-Welbeck's new town plan for East Chiltington? Surely I'm not suggesting that DDT or some other modern kind of organophosphate pesticides are going to be sprayed over the site to clean it beforehand like some kind of bulk air freshener?

No. But similar kind of nature impacting idea... (maybe)

Here's my thinking. Pesticide residues can break down in the soil after a period ranging from weeks to months - and then the ground can be usable to grow something. The soil is not as good as it was before. And you might have killed most of the bugs and insects and birds for a long way around - and you also might have ruined the health of anyone who was breathing nearby - but you can still grow some stuff. Especially genetically modified crops whose DNA have been tuned to benefit from that kind of soil spring cleaning.
silent spring and concrETON image wrongthingwrongplacedotcom
What's this got to do with the new town? (These ideas seem a million miles away...)

We're getting closer...

I think concrete is the modern equivalent of the 1950s DDT villain which Carson wrote about in her book.

Once you have covered fields in concrete - they will be lost for hundreds of years as a natural ecosystem which cleans the air, drains the floodwaters and feeds us.

In some ways - concreting over precious green fields - when brownfield sites are available - in the 2020s in South East England - is more reckless and careless of the well being of future generations than spraying the 1950s fields of North American farms with plane loads of pesticides.

We should know better. And stop such things happening.

Going back to my title - Final Spring - someone who saw an early draft of that said to me - isn't that a bit strong? Didn't I know that the first phase of the planning consultation would take 2 years. Nothing's going to be built till then.

What I said was - yeah but - I've seen how things have happened on other development sites in other places... In those other places - the sites get cleaned up as part of a multi year preparation. Inconvenient trees and hedges get hair cuts. So that by the time the plans are ready to be submitted - the original sites are much tidier than they were at the start.

So... when such developers get around to filling in forms which ask questions - like:- will this affect any trees or hedges?

Tick the NO boxes, here, here and here. Nice and easy. Shiny new photos in the ecological survey report to prove what a clean site it is already.

Nature likes a bit of a mess.

So when I wrote - final spring? - I did mean it - as a cry of warning. Because if things go the wrong way - and accidents do happen - then I fear this could be the last time you see these places looking as untidy and natural as they do now. I would be happy to be proved wrong.

Better still. Stop the plans in their tracks. At every stage. Protect the future. We don't want to be the dupes portrayed in a future concrEton rewriting of Silent Spring.
East Chiltington Eton site  - sad grasses and  weeping skies
Rachel Carson resources
And no birds sing (BBC radio 2012) - "looks at the explosive impact of Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring and its role in the growth of the environmental movement."

The Environment in History - lists books recommended by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society
final words on final Spring
Remember me saying something about the damage which would be caused by Eton-Welbeck's unneeded new town in East Chiltington?

And my new field equation...

DDT(1950s) = concrete(2020s)

where "=" means "is just as bad"

permalink for this article above

Now take a look at these statistics below.

....
Natural grassland covers 5.8% of UK land area (in forests and semi natural areas).

Artificial surfaces cover 8.3%. That's 43% more!
Those statistics on UK Land Use come from a study Review of Key Trends and Issues in UK Rural Land Use - Report to The Royal Society (157 pages pdf) (August 2020) - which (among other things) also says this.

"Landownership data is notoriously difficult to obtain in the UK and even today information on who owns rural land in the country remains clouded in secrecy and difficulties. Church and Ravenscroft point towards - the problems of identifying owners, especially in areas where land registration is incomplete (many areas of rural England) and land is rarely bought and sold (registration only taking place as a result of such a transaction).

The current landownership structure of England is outlined in Table 4.2"
land ownership in the UK - click to see the full report by University of Reading
read the report

.
grassland  lost to urbanisation in UK - report study
Editor:- July 9, 2020 - British grassland - greater in area than the size of Sussex and Suffolk combined was lost to urbanisation in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015 - according to a satellite based research study and report published today by the UK Centre of Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH).

"This information on how land cover has altered is crucial for understanding the impact of these changes on our environment, and helping us plan for the next 25 years" said Dr Clare Rowland - who led the production of the UK Land Cover Map 2015 and has been working with hydrologists to map land cover change and impervious surface to understand the impacts of urbanisation on the quantity and quality of water run-off.

Professor Bridget Emmett, Head of Soils and Land Use at UKCEH, says... With a growing population, the increasing demand for housing, food and fuel must be balanced with protecting the wildlife and ecosystems that bring a range of vital benefits for humans. Knowing what we have on our land surface and where is crucial when it comes to planning developments and environmental improvements in the future, and our maps are therefore essential tools for government agencies, water companies, land managers, NGOs and researchers" ...read the report

Editor's comments:- I was unaware of the above report when I wrote my Final Spring in Novington Lane article. But the dogs in the street knew that there was a serious problem emerging from the land-gain landgrab of greenfield sites by land promoters which were showing their visible signs of pain all over the "save our village / greenfields / rural landscape" web sites which I found on Google when the news about the Etongrad Armageddon hit us in February 2021 - when we were all closely confined in UK lockdown #3 wondering what to do next.

In retrospect - the instincts which guided the (anonymous to protect them) naming group to choose a suitable legacy name for the anti Eton Mess campaign group in East Chltington (to replace the temporary placeholder names used to kick things off by the group's founder Marc Munier) have proved to be well placed too.

In that context Don't Urbanise The Downs chosen (in March 2021) to be contextually easy to remember when placed on future road signs with their message of No Eton New Town - proved to be an inspired choice from both hearts and minds points of view.

.
no Eton new town sign

.
Eco Towns, Garden Cities, Garden Villages - I thought I understood English but it was a Developer who spoke them. Any idea what they mean?
The simple words eco and garden when prefixed to village, town or city can add up to create semi-descriptive phrases which are power loaded with wildly different connotations depending on who you are and the context in which they are encountered.

So you can't blame developers sprinkling these wordplay sauces liberally around their prospectus chalkboard menus to make their crunchy concreting dishes appear less ashen on the palette de jour. It's only natural!

On the other hand - countryphiles and rural protection campaigners who are at the unsolicited receiving end of these communications commonly report nocebo effects - including headache, nausea and a bitter aftertaste - due to a belief that jumbling together good words to disguise nature harming projects doesn't make their digestive outcomes any sweeter.

I was looking for a learner's guide to help me understand DeveloperSpeak And in a few clicks I found a very helpful phrase book on www.designingbuildings.co.uk

Here are links to translations of some DeveloperSpeak phrases which we might encounter more often in upcoming discourses on wrongthingwrongplace.com

eco town / garden town / garden city / garden community / garden village

Other competing interpretations are available.