Help protect the Sussex countryside
… and stop Eton College from building a 3,000-home new town on beautiful, rural farmland
Roadside placards
Request a placard! Our roadside placards are very effective! If you are able to place a placard in a prominent, local location, please fill out our placard request form.
Where we’re at - Summer 2026
Eton is putting in a planning application for a 3,000-home new town at East Chiltington THIS YEAR. Lewes District Council is against the scheme and has already excluded it from the draft Local Plan. However, if the Council fails to submit the Plan to central Government by the end of the year, it’s in a very precarious position.
The site, right on the border of the South Downs National Park, is HUGE and by far the biggest proposed development in the area. If you live anywhere near Plumpton, South Chailey or East Chiltington, this affects YOU.
Traffic chaos, decades of construction work, pollution, habitat loss and irreversible harm to wildlife and the environment ... these are just some of the reasons why this development must not go ahead - our primary concerns are set out below.
What you can do
Join the campaign by subscribing to our newsletter.
Download our leaflet.
Read our Backgrounder document - this will tell you everything you need to know.
The scheme
Eton College plans to build a 3,000-home new town in beautiful open countryside right on the edge of the South Downs National Park. The scheme will devastate a tranquil, nature-rich, deeply rural area bordered by three tiny villages (pop. 500). The scheme - already dubbed “unfeasible and undeliverable” by Lewes District Council - would damage the landscape of the area forever.
Don’t Urbanise the Downs campaign
Traffic
Local villages are already jammed at peak times and most local roads are tiny single-track lanes. A new town would take up to 30 years to build and generate some additional 3.5m extra car journeys a year.
The scheme would also engulf the tiny villages of East Chiltington, Plumpton and South Chailey.
The location
Dark Skies
The South Downs National Park is one of only 25 International Dark Sky Reserves in the world.
Environment
The ancient hedgerows, woodland & farmland provide essential habitats & corridors for wildlife. It can’t be “mitigated” - it would be gone forever.
The scheme would deal a death blow to the fragile ecology of a very special area of Sussex downland.
Run-off and pollution would have a devastating effect on the rare sea trout population which spawns in the Bevern chalk stream..
Lack of infrastructure
In an area already prone to severe flooding, a new town would only increase this. It would also put unfeasible pressure on underground chalk aquifers & generate unsustainable levels of sewage.
