On Tuesday (January 26), Eastbourne Borough Council planning committee once again considered an application connected to proposals to build 250 houses on the Friday Street Farm site, which sits just outside the boundaries of the town. The wider proposals have already been given outline planning permission by Wealden, but the access arrangements – via Pennine Way – need to get the go ahead from Eastbourne planners as well. The application had previously been before the committee in November, but was deferred as councillors wanted to secure legal agreements to ‘safeguard’ the council and its residents, which included a range of highways improvements. While it initially seemed like an agreement could be reached, a few days before the meeting was held it emerged that funding for these road works could not be confirmed. Planning committee chairman Jim Murray said: “We came away from [the previous meeting] delegating power to the officers to make sure all of the works to mitigate all of the traffic controls in the area would be done pre-commencement of works. “Going to pre-agenda it looked as though that was going to be the case, which is why it has come to us. Since that time Wealden council have come back and said, ‘actually no we don’t haven’t got the money in place and we are looking for pre-occupation.’ “Pre-occupation means that potentially they can up to 20 or 30 houses are built before the road works commence in this particular area. That is not what we asked for at the last committee meeting. “What we are after is that Wealden go away and come back with a firm offer with all the funding in place and make sure all the roadworks have been done pre-commencement of works on that site.” He added: “I think we can send quite a clear message back to Wealden now by saying: ‘We have already had this discussion, you know what we are asking for, we want all works to be done prior to commencement and we want to make sure all the funding is in place to be able to do all these works’.” The decision to defer the scheme for a second time was unanimously agreed by the committee without any significant discussion. But it did not go as far as to refuse the scheme, as requested by ward councillor Alan Shuttleworth. Cllr Shuttleworth said: “There are already significant delays as Pennine Way is the only road in and out of the area which already has around 1,400 people living there. The pressure on Pennine Way and Friday Street and beyond would increase enormously. “I am asking the committee to refuse planning permission on the grounds that the additional traffic will cause an unacceptable severe impact without the necessary mitigations, which are not guaranteed.” For further details see application reference 190706 on the Eastbourne Borough Council website.