News on West of Ifield

West of Ifield - Open spaces

In January 2020, we held a series of public engagement events to meet with residents and understand your thoughts on our proposals for the West of Ifield. As part of this consultation, we provided feedback forms to get your responses to key aspects of the design including open spaces, transport, jobs and design.

We have published a report about the feedback responses which you can find here.

In the coming weeks, we will be updating this website with posts about the main themes raised in the feedback. These posts will show how we plan to respond to comments given in the feedback and ensure that the new homes at the West of Ifield benefit the wider community.

Open spaces

During our public engagement events and the feedback process, we received a lot of comments asking how we will protect areas of high community value and much-loved open spaces such as Ifield Brook Meadows. We understand the importance of these areas to the community and through the responses to our feedback forms we gained an understanding of how we can protect and enhance the setting of these areas.

Protecting these areas was highlighted to us during the consultation process, through conversations with the project team and responses to our feedback form.

One of the questions we asked in our feedback form was ‘ How should the new neighbourhoods protect the environment and respond to climate change’ . The results of this question highlighted the importance of providing open and green spaces.

The community value of open areas was emphasised throughout the questions. We also asked: ‘ What do you think is important in creating new neighbourhoods?’ 171 people thought open spaces were one of the most important principles for the new neighbourhoods, which was the most popular response.

When we asked you which of the design principles for the West of Ifield are the most important and 120 people thought public spaces.

How will we take this feedback into consideration and ensure that the new neighbourhoods protect conservation areas and provide open spaces?

We are planning on making more than 50% (half) the site as open space

We will create a long-term body which will ensure the stewardship of these open spaces, which could include community ownership

The new body and stewardship measures will ensure that we achieve a 10% biodiversity net gain (10% increase in wildlife on site over the existing baseline)

We have carried out ecological surveys which have identified key conservation areas and ancient woodlands which will be protected with appropriate “ buffer zones ”

We will avoid potential impacts of protected species as much as possible

Protection of community loved sites such as Ifield Brook Meadows

You can find more information about how we will protect the local environment and open spaces in our question and answer document here.

Over the coming weeks we will be posting more about the key issues that came out of our public consultation, including flooding, roads and infrastructure. If you have any questions please get in touch at westofifield@homesengland.gov.uk or 020 8629 7209 .

Posted on 22nd June 2020

by West of Ifield