We are calling on our Local Authority, Mid Sussex District Council to make an Immediate Article 4 Direction on The Ship Inn, Whitemans Green, Cuckfield to remove the permitted development rights and force the new freeholders, the O'Keefes to submit a planning application for changing the pub to a supermarket which the community will then have an opportunity to have their say on.

Last May, to enable their retirement, the previous owners of the Ship Inn sold the pub to Arthur & Vivienne O'Keefe, landlords of The Old Cage at Lingfield, believing that they would continue trading as a public house and maintain the 200+ years of the building being used as a pub.  Sadly the O'Keefes had other ideas and hatched a plan with The Co-Operative to convert the store into a supermarket.

Unfortunately under current planning law this change of use is permitted without a planning application, despite the pub being a viable ongoing business, despite it being in a conservation area and next door to an existing general stores, despite Cuckfield having a Neighbourhood Plan which has specific policies set to protect the pub and despite the vast majority of the community not wanting to lose the pub.

Fortunately, there is a chance that we can still save our pub.

The National Planning Policy Framework allows for a Local Authority to make an Article 4 Direction to remove national permitted development rights in situations where necessary to protect local amenity or the wellbeing of the area.  That is why we are calling on MSDC to issue the A4D NOW and protect this much loved local amenity and the wellbeing of our area.