Village refugees scare

A CLAIM that the disused Mayfield College is to be leased to the Home Office as a refuge for asylum seekers has resurfaced.

Plans for a housing development costing 13 million within the grounds of the old college were thrown out by Wealden District Council last week.

And at the weekend a photocopied notice headed 'Sangatte to Mayfield' was put through letterboxes in the village.

The leaflet pointed out that the development proposal had been turned down and said the developer had been approached by the Home Office to lease the building for 350 refugees.

It urged local people to write to the planning officer at Wealden Council.

Wealden said yesterday that it knew nothing of the proposal.

The Express attempted to contact Sabre Developments, the company who had submitted the housing plan for the site, but could only reach an answering machine.

MP acts

Wealden MP Charles Hendry has written to Home Secretary David Blunkett seeking an assurance that the College site is not being considered for refugees, and proposes to raise the matter in the House of Commons on Monday.

Mr Hendry said a similar rumour circulated last year and at that time the Home Office gave a categoric assurance that they had no interest in Mayfield as a location for refugees.

The College site would be entirely inappropriate, he said yesterday.

Wealden's decision last week to reject the development plan for the site was prompted by the scale of the project 42 apartments and ten houses which led to an officer's recommendation of refusal.

A report by assistant district planning officer Ian Kay said the benefit of restoring the main Grade 2 listed building on the site, two miles north of Mayfield village, was outweighed by the excessive amount of development proposed and the harm likely to be caused to the surrounding High Weald landscape.

The arguments echoed concern of 178 people who signed a petition last year opposing the development and 20 who signed a second petition received by the council in January. In addition 21 letters opposed the plans.

All the buildings on the 45-hectare site are currently disused and vacant. The old school closed down in the summer of 1999.

Mr Kay said in his report that the main four-storey college building and chapel had a dominating presence.

The scheme would have involved the demolition of buildings including a gymnasium hall, west wing, headmaster's house, a pair of semi-detached staff bungalows and other school buildings in the college grounds.

It was proposed to restore the main college building, build two new apartment blocks and convert, adapt and extend the remaining buildings into private residential use.

Mr Kay said it was clear that in the absence of funding or grants being available to restore the listed building and its grounds some form of 'enabling' development would have to be allowed to prevent the historic asset becoming derelict.

But it was apparent that a convincing case remained to be proven that the current proposals represented the minimum necessary to secure retention of the listed building as well as being the least harmful to the important setting and the various environmental interests of the site.