Lewes Pressure Group Broadly Welcomes Big Land Sale After Stalled Development

A Lewes group that's campaigned for eight years for a large local development to put the town's communities and creative people first is welcoming a land acquisition by a local company, after an existing developer stopped work.

An agreement is underway between the present owners of the North Street Quarter (Mas Rei, and Lewes District Council) and developer Human Nature, in which many leading personalities are local to Lewes.

The Lewes Phoenix Rising group has given a broad welcome to the purchase, which is set to take place.

Human Nature, described by the campaigners as a "sustainable developer", is understood to hope to complete the purchase of the privately owned part of the North Street Quarter site by February next year, shortly before launching a community design event in Spring 2021.

Additionally, Lewes District Council Cabinet has also committed to agree terms for a proposed sale of the Council's share of the site to Human Nature.

This could enable the site to be developed in its entirety as required by the South Downs National Park planning policy.

A spokesperson for Lewes Phoenix Rising described the planned deals as "great news for the town", saying it had come about as a result of many efforts carried out by supporters of Lewes Phoenix Rising.

The group emphasised the need for Human Nature's own plans to "genuinely meet the future needs of our town".

The spokesperson continued:

"[This means] every donation, every window poster displayed, every person who attended a march or joined in our consultation events, contributed towards this outcome.

"We can all feel proud that Lewes, yet again, has shown it really cares about its buildings, places and the people who live here."

The group believes Human Nature has a commitment to sustainable development and to generating benefits for Lewes , the town and district.

At the same time, Lewes Phoenix Rising welcomed the transfer of its co-founder and director Chelsea Renton to Human Nature as Head of Communities.

Meanwhile, Joanna Carter (a former Green Party District Councillor and North Street community campaigner), and Sheila O’Sullivan (a long-time member of LPR's management team and current chair of Cycle Lewes) have both become Directors of Lewes Phoenix Rising.

The group said it believed Human Nature would focus on collaborative design processes that engage people in defining places where current and future residents will want to live and work.

It agreed that "deep engagement by the community with this large and complex development site" will be crucial.

Its hopes included that the plans should:

"…meet Lewes’ expectation for a genuinely sustainable development, with a wide range of homes, jobs and services for our town, including genuinely affordable housing and workspace."

Some parts of the NSQ, also called the Phoenix Estate (after the former iron and steel works), were occupied at relatively low rent by a co-operative set of artists, makers, and other community groups.

After initial terms for the redevelopment of the NSQ were agreed following plans being first floated in 2013, many of the premises they rented were closed by the North Street Quarter's former owners and partially demolished, to make way for the first phase of redevelopment work.

This involved the wholesale eviction of the creative community, which produced deep resentment in some sections of Lewes.

But the redevelopment failed to get going in earnest — and the land on which the former occupiers exercised their talents lies empty.

Other parts of the industrial estate are occupied by several independent businesses, trading to the great benefit of the local community from premises that, in several cases, have seen better days.

These include an NHS dentist, garage services, and light engineering companies.