Wealden's draft plan puts 858 homes in Crowborough parish by 2042, 165 of them on eight named sites. The district target has jumped from 1,200 to 1,457 a year.

Wealden is writing a new Local Plan under a housing target that went up by a fifth halfway through, for a council that will not exist by the time the plan runs out. Both of those facts are settled, and together they explain most of what is happening to planning in Crowborough right now.

Everything here comes from the council’s own documents, chiefly the Draft ‘Focused’ Local Plan (Regulation 18) published on 4 February 2026, which we read directly rather than second hand.

The target went from 1,200 to 1,457 a year

The government rewrote the standard method for calculating housing need in December 2024. Wealden’s number changed with it.

  • Under the old method, at the March 2024 draft plan, Wealden’s need was 1,200 homes a year, or 19,800 over the plan period then in use.
  • Under the new method, it is 1,457 homes a year. Over the plan period from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2042, that is 24,769 homes, which the council’s own text describes as “almost 5,000 more homes”.

That is why there were two Regulation 18 consultations rather than one. The first ran 15 March to 10 May 2024. The second, on a “focused” draft covering only the parts national policy had broken, ran 6 February to 30 March 2026, extended from an original close of 20 March, with ten in-person exhibitions across the district including one at Crowborough.

The plan does not meet the target, and says so

This is the part that matters and the part that rarely gets reported. Wealden has not found 24,769 homes. The focused draft identifies 16,609, an annual rate of 977 a year.

Wealden's housing need against the supply in its draft Local Plan, 2025 to 2042 The standard method requires 24,769 homes over the plan period, or 1,457 a year. The draft plan identifies a supply of 16,609 homes, or 977 a year, made up of 7,845 existing commitments, 2,000 windfall allowance and 6,764 draft allocations. That leaves a shortfall of 8,160 homes. In an alternative scenario without the 1,500-home Owlsbury Farm site at Uckfield, supply falls to 15,109 homes. The draft plan is 8,160 homes short of the target Plan period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2042. Source: Wealden Draft 'Focused' Local Plan (Regulation 18), February 2026. Standard method need 24,769 homes · 1,457 a year Supply in the draft plan 16,609 homes · 977 a year 8,160 short Where the 16,609 comes from 7,845 committed 2,000 6,764 new allocations windfall Drop the disputed 1,500-home Owlsbury Farm site at Uckfield and supply falls again, to 15,109.

The 16,609 breaks down as 7,845 homes already committed at 1 April 2025, a 2,000-home windfall allowance for sites inside development boundaries that are not allocated, and 6,764 homes on draft allocations.

It also depends on one very large site. Land at Owlsbury Farm, Lewes Road, Uckfield is in the figures at 1,500 homes within the plan period, and is the subject of a live application (reference WD/2025/0922/MEA) for up to 1,700 homes, 50 care units, a mixed-use centre and a two-form entry primary school. The council states in the draft that it “has some concerns” about the ecological evidence and the site’s connectivity to Uckfield town centre, and publishes an alternative scenario without it. In that scenario supply drops to 15,109.

A plan that falls this far below its own assessed need is the plan that will be tested at examination, and the gap is where the pressure on the countryside around Crowborough will come from.

What is drafted for Crowborough

Crowborough parish is down for 858 homes to 2042: 418 already committed, a 275-home windfall allowance, and 165 on new draft allocations. That 165 is spread across eight named sites, and none of them is large.

Draft Local Plan allocations in Crowborough parish, February 2026
RefSiteHomes
CR3Land at Steel Cross Farm, Green Lane60
CR4Land at Byeways, Palesgate Lane30
CR2Land at the London Road and Pilmer Road junction28
CR5Land at Millbrook Road15
CR7Spring Cottage, Eridge Road10
CR6Land east of Southview Close8
CR8Crowborough Police Station, Crowborough Hill8
CR1Kingswood, Luxford Lane6
Total165

Two more sites sit in neighbouring parishes but read as Crowborough on the ground: 15 homes at land to the rear of Cooks, off London Road, in Withyham parish, and 5 at Hideaway, Tubwell Lane, in Rotherfield. The change since the March 2024 draft is small: 18 extra dwellings across two new sites.

Two larger Crowborough sites were looked at and not allocated. Land north of Stone Cross Road at Alderbrook (80 homes) is flagged for unresolved access that may need third-party land. Land at Beechenwood Farm (120 homes) needs more detail on landscape and character impact. Both stay on the list of options, which is the standard route by which a rejected site returns at the next stage.

Where the district’s growth actually goes

Crowborough’s 858 is a mid-sized share. The parishes carrying the load are elsewhere:

  • Hailsham 2,640 homes, of which 1,653 are already committed
  • Uckfield 1,919
  • Little Horsted 1,503, almost all of it the Owlsbury Farm site
  • Westham 1,375, Hellingly 1,174, Horam 1,041
  • Willingdon and Jevington 977, Polegate 829
  • Frant 717, East Hoathly with Halland 650, Framfield 578
  • Heathfield and Waldron 386, Maresfield 347, Buxted 349
  • Forest Row 116, Wadhurst 114, Hartfield 49

The pattern is unambiguous. Wealden’s plan puts its growth in the south of the district, around Hailsham and Polegate, and along the A22 at Uckfield, and takes comparatively little in the High Weald towns. Crowborough’s constraint is the Forest. Ashdown Forest is a Special Protection Area, and Wealden runs a dedicated mitigation strategy for it, which limits how much new housing can be put within reach of the heath.

There is also a genuinely large option sitting outside the plan. Land at Laughton Park Farm was submitted as a 4,000-home new settlement, of which 925 would fall inside the plan period. It is listed as an option requiring further work on infrastructure, access and transport, not as an allocation.

Recent decisions

A waste depot and solar array at Knights Farm West, north Hailsham, was approved by Wealden’s planning committee on 22 July 2026, with vehicular access via a new roundabout onto the A267. The existing Amberstone depot is full, and the council needs room for the fleet expansion that comes with food waste collections. It includes a workshop, offices and staff welfare buildings alongside the solar panels.

Construction started in July 2026 on a new medical centre and community hall at Mayfield, east of Crowborough on the A267.

The council will be abolished in 2028

On 16 July 2026 the Secretary of State set out the government’s decision on local government reorganisation in Sussex. Wealden District Council will cease to exist. East Sussex County Council and the district and borough councils of Wealden, Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes and Rother are to be replaced by a single East Sussex unitary authority from April 2028, with East Saltdean, Peacehaven and Telscombe moving into Brighton and Hove instead. Elections to the new council are set for May 2027, a year before it takes over. The decision is a modified version of the “One East Sussex” proposal and remains subject to parliamentary approval.

Councillor Rachel Millward, leader of Wealden District Council, said the council’s priority was “to work constructively with partners across East Sussex to help create a strong and effective new council for the future”.

What that means for the Local Plan is the open question. A plan period running to 2042 will be delivered for fourteen of its seventeen years by an authority that does not exist yet, and Wealden’s draft is still at Regulation 18, two formal stages away from adoption.

Where to check an application

Wealden is not on the Idox system most Kent and Sussex councils use. Its public register is the planning-register.co.uk product at planning.wealden.gov.uk, which puts a copyright and disclaimer page in front of every search before letting you through. There is no weekly validated-applications list in the format other districts publish, so searching by address or reference is the only reliable route.

Local Plan documents, including the full Draft ‘Focused’ Local Plan, are on the council’s own Local Plan pages.

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