A meeting organised by the Parish Council, for the local community. Please come along to hear about the Parish Council’s work and plans, and to raise matters/ask questions about things that are important to you.
2025 APM Agenda - Wednesday 7th May
The results of the Housing Needs Survey commissioned by the Parish Council, and undertaken by Action in Rural Sussex in December 2024, have now been published.
Please see below for a summary of the findings and a copy of the full report.
Council tax bills will soon be coming through letterboxes and, as you are aware, the overall bill is made up of several component parts: some goes towards the provision of District & County Council Services, some towards Police and Fire services and some, more locally, towards the services that the Parish Council provides.
This year, the Parish Council has taken the decision to increase the Parish element, both to help cover rising costs and, predominantly, to give a budget for us to continue to employ planning consultants to help fight the large-scale speculative developments that Wivelsfield is being beset by.
We have not taken this decision lightly but, having seen the strength of feeling against the recent 150 homes application (as evidenced by a strong turnout at a public meeting last November, plus the sheer number of local objections on the Lewes District Planning portal), the Parish Council believes that employing specialist planning consultants to put together detailed and robust representations, highlighting the ways in which such developments would be contrary to planning policy and would damage and place greater strain on the community, is necessary, to seek to protect the identity of Wivelsfield Green as a village.
The monetary increase for the Parish element will be equal to just over 50p per week, for a Band D property.
Lewes District Citizens Advice will be holding a drop-in advice session in Wivelsfield next Monday, 24th March, from 10.30am – 1.30pm, in the Renshaw Room at Wivelsfield Village Hall.
Please pop in if there is anything they may be able to help with.
Each year, Wivelsfield Parish Council gives a small number of grants to local (Wivelsfield-based) groups and organisations, to support their activities. Our grants budget is relatively modest, so the Parish Council is keen to offer grants to support activities/initiatives which specifically benefit local people and which groups may otherwise be unable to offer.
If you belong to a group which serves local people and may benefit from a small grant, please click on the Grants Policy below, which gives further details, includes an application form and indicates the supporting information that needs to be provided.
The deadline for applications is Tuesday 25th February 2025.
Applications will be considered at our Parish Council meeting on 3rd March, for payment in the new (2025-26) financial year.
Lewes District Council is running a series of drop in consultation events on the emerging Local Plan, with the nearest to Wivelsfield taking place at Newick Village Hall, this coming Saturday (1 Feb), from 10am – 1pm.
Please go along to find out more about how this important document will help to shape the future of the Lewes District, talk to planning officers and find out how to give your views.
If you’re not free to attend this event, please go along to any of the remaining ones (shown below), as the information on display will be the same at each. Alternatively, go online to find out more at https://www.lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk/lewes-local-plan
The Local Plan consultation period runs until Friday 28th February.
The Parish Council has engaged a firm of planning consultants to draw up representations on its behalf, against the Taylor Wimpey planning application for 150 homes south of Green Road.
Last week, the consultants submitted two letters to Lewes District Council (LDC). The first, in response to application LW/24/0803, argued that the information which Taylor Wimpey has provided is insufficient to allow LDC to determine whether or not an Environmental Impact Assessment should be required for this site.
The second, in respect of application LW/24/0820, requested that, owing to missing documents, LDC invalidates the application until such time as these documents are received and then restarts the clock on the public consultation. If LDC is not willing to do that then, owing to problems with the LDC website – which had made accessing the planning documents difficult until last week – the consultants have asked that LDC at least resets the clock on the consultation period.
It appears that the consultation period deadline has now been extended to 18th February.
Residents are strongly encouraged to submit their views about application LW/24/0820, via the Lewes District Council website, or by writing to / emailing the Planning Department.
This Tuesday 14 January Lewes District Council will be holding a webinar and Q&A for anyone interested in hearing about our current stage of consultation over the Lewes District Local Plan, from 5pm to 6.30pm.
We’ll hold this on Zoom – the link for the session can be found on our website at Lewes District Local Plan consultation – Lewes and Eastbourne Councils. You can also find details of all in-person events on this page.
We’ll make a recording of the webinar available on our website once it has ended, for anyone unable to attend live.
For this current phase of consultation, we are asking residents to focus their feedback on:
– Early site allocation proposals
– Themes and policies of the plan
The current phase of consultation focuses on sites within towns and a limited number of villages. There will be a further stage of consultation later in the year that will have a greater emphasis on more rural parts of the district, while also re-evaluating areas considered during phase one.
The Lewes District Citizens Advice are offering drop in sessions in the Renshaw Room of Wivelsfield Village Hall. The sessions are 10.30am until 1pm on the following dates: