New Lewes MP Calls Loss Of Bus Station "A Tragedy"

James MacCleary, the newly-elected MP for Lewes, chose to spend his first Saturday morning on the job meeting campaigners protesting the loss of Lewes Bus Station.

During the meeting he commented on the plans to redevelop the site for commercial housing, saying they were “the very last thing the town needs”.

The ‘Save Lewes Bus Station’ campaign has seen dozens of concerned Lewes residents, councillors and local community groups come together each Saturday morning in June and July for pop-up protests in front of the site, demanding that the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) refuse to give planning consent to property developer, Generator Group.

Campaigners say Generator Group intend to convert the bus station site into residential flats with no element of affordable housing.

Local people have also condemned Generator’s proposals to replace the bus station with bus stops on the busy nearby Phoenix Causeway as inadequate and highly dangerous.

Town councillor Adrian Ross, who has helped spearhead the Save Lewes Bus Station campaign and has studied Generator’s plans, said:

"Generator Group are proposing bus stops either side of the Phoenix Causeway as a replacement for a dedicated bus station. But it should be clear to anyone that having bus stops on either side of a busy, 30mph, A-road – a road that passengers will have to cross to change buses – is an accident waiting to happen.

“It's impossible not to imagine school children running straight across the wide, fast road to catch their connecting bus waiting on the other side of the road.  It will only be a matter of time until someone is injured or worse."

Meeting campaigners, James MacCleary MP said:

“I think the proposals to replace a purpose-built, off-road bus station that had a brilliant café, and somewhere where drivers could rest and change shifts, are an absolute tragedy.”

“The bigger picture for me is that we need to encourage people to use public transport and we need fewer people driving cars around.

"Removing bus stations for me, on principle, is a really bad idea. How can we ever hope to transition to a greener, more sustainable transport network if we don’t have the infrastructure to allow bus travel to grow?”

‘Save Lewes Bus Station’ campaigners are urging residents and all interested parties to lodge objections to the proposals on the SDNPA’s planning website, using the Planning Application Reference Number SDNP/23/02973/FUL.

The SDNPA’s planning committee is expected to make a decision on the site in September.

MacCleary concluded:

“Instead of a fit-for-purpose bus station, we’re getting a pretty unaffordable housing development at the very centre of Lewes, which is the very last thing the town needs. Everything that can be done to reverse that plan is worth doing. I’m 100% behind this campaign to save Lewes Bus Station and I’ll be putting my own objection in to the South Downs National Park.”