Crowborough couple highlight ‘ironic’ decision after plan for ‘eco-home’ is refused while hundreds of asylum seekers are housed nearby
Crowborough couple highlight ‘ironic’ decision after plan for ‘eco-home’ is refused while hundreds of asylum seekers are housed nearby.
A couple living near an asylum seeker shelter facility in Crowborough had their application for a new home denied.
Phil and Christine Straker, both retired, reside near to Crowborough Training Camp, which is being utilised by the Home Office to accommodate hundreds of single adult males seeking asylum in the UK.
The Home Office has stated that the decision is ‘part of the government’s objective to end the use of expensive hotels’ for asylum seekers.
Phil, 69, has branded the recent failure of his application for a new home ‘ironic’, stating it was knocked down because of its ‘impact’ on the neighbourhood, while the continued plan for the army barracks next door is to accommodate roughly 500 people.
Phil told this publication that the converted barn he and his wife own is now too large for them.
“The plan was to build ourselves a slightly smaller, more economical-to-run house – so ‘eco-home’ if you like – on the site of the old stables.”
He stated: “We own this paddock behind the barn, which has got a log store and stables there.”
In July of last year, the couple submitted a planning application to Wealden District Council (WDC) for a new self-build four-bedroom house on a portion of their property.
According to the application’s design and access statement, the residence will have all of the most current energy-saving equipment, such as P.V panels, air-sourced heating, water-saving facilities, and electric car charging facilities.
It further stated that the project would not detract from the site’s character or look, and that it would be adjacent to a recently completed construction of 18 new dwellings.
However, a decision notice issued on September 18, 2025, denied approval, stating that the design would “harm the character of the High Weald National Landscape (HWNL).”
It said that the proposed home’s ‘visual detachment and taming of agricultural land’ would weaken the HWNL’s ‘intrinsic openness and natural beauty’. It also stated that the proposal site is within 7 km of the Ashdown Forest Special Protection Area and is ‘likely to have a major adverse impact’ on it.
Phil filed an appeal against this judgement, and his form was dated January 21, 2026, the day before the Home Office stated that the first asylum seekers had been sent to Crowborough Training Camp.
Phil and Christine believed they had ‘a reasonably good chance’ of getting the application approved due of the neighbouring homes being built and the nearby army camp.
However, he stated: “Ultimately, even on appeal, it failed and they (WDC) said it was because of the impact on Ashdown Forest.”
Phil stated that he and his wife will continue to live in the barn, but he believes his self-built home should have been permitted, as it would have freed up a very large house for another family to come into.
The proposed dwelling is “set apart” from all surrounding homes, the area has a “moderate to high sensitivity to small scale housing,” the proposed development “projects further into the open grassland” and contrasts with “the rural character of the existing field,” and it conflicts with “the key characteristics of the area,” which would be “harmful to the High Weald National Landscape,” according to the appeal decision notice published on April 14.
“The irony of it, that you have 500 or so guys moving in to the army camp, which is far closer to the forest than we are, and we get turned down because of the impact,” Phil remarked.
The appeal ruling referred to the army camp as ‘temporary accommodation on a different location’ that is ‘functionally distinct from permanent homes such as those envisaged’.
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