City Councillors have rejected a recommendation to resume the sale of Plumpton Hill and Poynings Field. The sales had been suspended in December, as a result of widespread outrage at the prospect of flogging off these vital parts of the City’s historic 12,500 acre Downland Estate.
At a meeting on 19 January Conservative and Green councillors passed a motion requiring the sale of the two vulnerable sites to be referred to a new Policy Review Panel. The sales were intended to part-fund the controversial Stanmer Park Project and to contribute to the alleviation of the Council’s debt.
All the Downland that has been sold or is threatened with sale is within the South Downs National Park.
Keep Our Downs Public is a coalition of local people which was formed in 1994-5 to successfully fight the proposed privatisation of the whole Downland Estate by the then ruling Labour Party. A new Keep Our Downs Public group has now been formed in Eastbourne to fight similar Downs sell-off proposals by Eastbourne Council over 3,000 acres of Downland behind Beachy Head.
Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth 
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