34 Dwellings with an already reduced number of parking bays from the original figure of 88 now down to 78.

At yesterday's planning meeting (12th November) it was agreed that 20 of the 'tandem parking bays' were in all probability not usable. So therefore, we have 34 dwellings and only 58 useable parking spaces, including visitor parking.

Worse than that the site was supposed to have 40% affordable housing. The applicant has 'pled poverty' by saying, "We can't afford to build affordable housing." So, the planning committee have agreed with them only 11% which equates to 4 x 2-bedroom flats. This is despite there being 1700 people on the council waiting list in Rother waiting for homes and 43 of them actually from Northiam!

Even so yesterday the planning committee at Rother District Council, UNANIMOUSLY approved the application for The Paddock development.

Our OWN two District Councillors Tony Ganly (planning committee member) and Martin Mooney happily waved through the development at The Paddock saying, "How wonderful it was and what an asset to the village it will be!!"

The fact that the planning committee coach was unable to satisfactorily navigate Goddens Gill on Tuesday when it ferried all the planning committee members to this site...... was not even mentioned...

So the 100 or so letters from concerned villagers, who objected to this inappropriate and urban development in the middle of our village were IGNORED, but far, far worse than that neither of our District Councillors SUPPORTED their own voters or indeed even supported the Parish Council who have continually refused to approve this application!!

It was also stated at the planning meeting that the objections were 'irrelevant' - so as these objections were based on RDC's own planning policies.... Does this mean that the RDC planning committee consider their own polices 'irrelevant'?

By just ticking the box yesterday and approving this application the developer has agreed to pay RDC more than a whopping £1M in what is called the '106 agreement'. Which is a legal document ....

Does this amount to a 'Legal Bribe'?

£1M is quite an incentive for the planning committee to approve this application, don't you think?