A woman in Whitehawk is upset that she and her neighbours have been rebuffed by the council as it prepares to earmark land for housing on a sensitive site.
The neighbours wanted to tell councillors in person why they should protect a butterfly bank but they are not being allowed to speak.
Swanborough Drive resident Angela El-Zeind gathered support from her community to try to remove a former playground site from City Plan Part Two, Brighton and Hove City Council’s 10-year strategic planning blueprint.
The City Plan is due to go before a meeting of the full council for adoption tomorrow (Thursday 20 October) after a public consultation on the final draft started in May.
In recent years, residents’ groups have fought to remove parts of the “urban fringe” – green spaces around the edge of Brighton and Hove – from the City Plan.
There have been campaigns to protect the Whitehawk Nature Reserve and sites in Benfield Valley, Patcham and Coldean.
One succeeded, bringing protection for land in Patcham – next to Horsdean Recreation Ground – which was removed from the plan by a government planning inspector.
Ms Al-Zeind said that when she approached people to protect the green space in Whitehawk, many responded by saying that the council did not care what they thought.
One of her frustrations is that a “Planning For Real” session called “In Ten Years’ Time Swanborough Drive Will Be …” is taking place today (Wednesday 19 October) when she fears it will be too late.
And the session is due to take place from 10am to 1pm – a time when Ms Al-Zeind and many of her neighbours are at work.
She said: “There is an evening one but it is presenting what was done in the morning so what’s the point? They haven’t listened to us because we can’t participate.
“It’s very frustrating that it’s not accessible. What am I supposed to do? Take a day off?”
When reaching out to the community to see how people felt about the proposals to build between up to 39 flats on the nature reserve, many residents said that they had no idea about the plans.
She wanted to lead a deputation to the council asking for the Swanborough Drive site to be removed from the City Plan.
But the council turned down her request because the City Plan had “completed its consultation and public examination” – and the vote was simply to adopt it in its entirety or reject it.
She said: “People didn’t have the opportunity to say anything because they didn’t know it was happening – and they didn’t know they could oppose it.
Council have no intention of listening to residents in Brighton They have there own agenda and stuff the residents