Still time to add your name to petition and show support as Stop Cuck-Stye campaigners head for Westminster

Campaigners to stop the development of 1,450 homes between Cuckfield and Ansty are next week taking their fight to Westminster. In one of the final steps by the Stop Cuck-Stye Campaign, a group of residents will deliver a petition to housing minister Angela Rayner. And they need your help.

Organisers hope to increase signatures to at least 1,000 before heading to London. The petition can be found at Change.org or by clicking the button at the bottom of the page.

Westminster now controls the outcome of a long and protracted planning battle to stop the proposal which Mid Sussex District Council initially rejected last year. Developer, Fairfax Acquisirtions Ltd, launched an appeal which was heard in June by a government-appointed inspector, Joanna Gilbert. She was expected to make the final decision after hearing views and evidence from both sides of the argument.

However, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Govetnement at the time, Steve Reed, intervened early in the hearing, ruling that the inspector would only come to an advisory position and that he would be making the final decision.

Now, following new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s cabinet shake-up, Angela Rayner, the newly appointed Secretary of State, will have the final say. Last October, councillors rejected the proposal, which would occupy about 100 hectares of countryside, warning it would effectively merge Ansty and Cuckfield, damage the High Weald landscape and urbanise open countryside.

For campaigners, the appeal has become a test of how far central government is prepared to overrule local resistance in the name of housing delivery. For ministers, it is another politically sensitive example of the pressure to build at scale while claiming to protect valued countryside.

The petition is another signal to government of local residents’ opposition. Which is why organisers want to ensure that as many people sign it as possible between now and early next week. Add your name by using the button below.