Action to protect land

ACTION was taken this week to protect small plots of land in two downland parishes that are up for public auction by an undisclosed company in London. There is widespread concern in both Thakeham and West Chiltington that potential purchasers may believe that the land will get permission for housing development. They stress that this is extremely unlikely, and now Horsham District Council has acted to ban unsuitable use of the land and prevent gates or fences being put up.

Bernard Marcus will be auctioning the plots on behalf of a company on Tuesday next week at The Grand Connaught Rooms in Great Queen Street, London. Plots of farmland and woodland in Thakeham between Crays Lane and Dukes Hill have been given an auction guide price of £15,000- £20,000 each for one to two acres. According to the latest RICS survey of agricultural land values, pasture land sells for £4,500 per acre. Woodland sells for less.

According to Thakeham Village Action, the land is in the open countryside and has practically no chance of ever being developed. The campaign group fears purchasers might think the land will get permission for housing development, seeing it inflate in value. The strips are crossed by very well-used footpaths for which access has to be maintained, adding to the purchaser’s costs. Much of the land is poorly drained, with water often lying on the surface in winter months. The land is also close to the proposed rotting rubbish landfill tip at Laybrook and, many residents report that their land is already much devalued.

Residents fear that purchasers will be tempted to buy land of little value, and the land itself will then go to ruin, full of litter or worse. One resident said: “With absent owners, the land will be neglected, with problems such as fly tipping, squatting and vandalism following, blighting what is now attractive farmland and woodland.”

At this sale, not only are strip plots being sold in Thakeham, but seven plots of between 1 and 1.3 acres in nearby West Chiltington are being offered for sale for the third time. The catalogue details for these say ‘the plots offer an opportunity for a purchaser to acquire parcels of land previously utilised for agricultural purposes, but would be ideal for pony paddock, leisure use or future development, subject to the necessary consents’.

West Chiltington Parish Council clerk, Tony Thomas, said: “The land was previously owned by West Sussex County Council and bought by a company. When the plots were first offered for sale a local resident bought one for personal use possibly for allotment/garden. “I was contacted by a woman asking if she could build an eco home if she bought one of the plots, because the land had been billed as having ‘planning potential’. If there had been any chance of developing the land, the county council would never have sold it in the first place. People should realise that they could never buy potential housing land for £10,000 an acre. The cost for a building plot in West Chiltington is around £400,000.”

He added that both the county council and the landowning company had ‘clawback’ agreements for any plots sold, with significant sums of money to be paid to them by anyone buying the land if planning permission was to be given in the future. “Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about the land being offered for sale. Only one of the seven plots has been sold.”

Published Date: 29 September 2009
THERE were two mile queues in Storrington following an accident involving a refuse lorry this morning (Tuesday September 29).
The A283 High Street was blocked both ways at B2139 School Hill.
Police were directing traffic until the lorry was removed at around 9.30am.
Sussex County Times.

The beautiful engineering of some of these items is worthy of attention for its own sake, creating a piece of equipment that was a joy to handle and operate, unlike the ubiquitous plastic boxes we use today. There was also the inventiveness of those who built equipment for a purpose that was not otherwise accessible. The knowledge and enthusiasm of amateur photographers, who in the early days not only took photos but also processed them through various chemical stages to produce beautiful results that were quite individual, is admirable.

We have what must be my own favourite piece, a photographic enlarger, a wooden case with bellows to extend the lens, many fine brass adjustments and the open back protected by a black cloth hood. The lighting was most likely a paraffin lamp inside its metal case, and the film in a wooden frame was projected onto a wall or white sheet.

There is the story of the popular Kodak Brownie cameras demonstrated by several examples, which put photography into the hands of everybody, together with some of their humorous advertising. We have a rare Opalotype, whereby a photograph was printed onto a piece of milk glass which would then be framed only around the edges and hung in a window so that the daylight shone through producing a transparent image. We even have a Daguerrotype, an early process invented in 1839 by Daguerre, who took the image onto a silver plate sensitized by iodine and developed by mercury vapour. What price Health and Safety!

Do pay us a visit, and as you take those digital holiday photos, think of all the work of those enthusiasts of the past, who were determined to preserve images of their life and times.