Plans for the ‘UK’s most sustainable neighbourhood’ modelled around locally sourced food have been saved by a local council buying the land from the developer.
Backed by The Food Foundation, The Phoenix Project in Lewes, East Sussex, was billed as promising a new blueprint for the UK’s food system when initial planning approval was granted in 2024.
But two years on, full planning requirements are yet to be met and Lewes District Council has stepped in to buy the land for £9.5m as developer Human Nature grapples with soaring costs.
The council bought the brownfield site on 27 February for £9.5m, half the sum previously paid by Human Nature in 2021. Human Nature will now lease the land with an option to buy for 18 months.
Lewes District Council said the acquisition safeguarded the project so it would be able to deliver on its promise to the area.
The Food Foundation partnered with Human Nature in 2024 to develop a “visionary new food and health strategy” for the project, hailing an opportunity to “build a positive food culture into the fabric of an entire neighbourhood”.
Designed as a walkable neighbourhood with 685 timber-built homes, it would create “a culture of food growing” and “provide residents and the wider community with healthy and affordable access to food” from local producers, the campaigning charity said at the time.
Food Foundation head of campaigns and development Jo Ralling said at the time: “This new model definitely provides questions for supermarkets and the food sector.”
Read more: Where does food fit into the town of the future?
However, the project has been beset by delays in satisfying planning conditions of securing affordable homes, healthcare facilities, bus provision and flood defences.
“It’s taken two years for all manner of reasons,” Human Nature founder and CEO Jonathan Smales told The Grocer. “The first year was really all about highways, because the Phoenix is very innovative in terms of low parking as a walkable neighbourhood, and that’s challenging for a mainstream highways authority.
“One of the things the planning system doesn’t really allow for or comprehend in the UK is the time cost of money,” He added. “If something that might be done in two years takes five, the cost to the applicant is huge.
“Build cost inflation has been £44m since we started.”
Smales said final barriers to full planning consent included establishing economic viability of the development. “Nearly every big project in the UK has this challenge”, he said.
He said he expected full approval to take another six months and construction to begin this autumn, with backing from an unnamed new investor.
Smales said it would still be “far and away the UK’s most sustainable urban neighbourhoods”, as originally conceived.
“Food is such a critical part of the whole piece. We’ve already begun the process, with regenerative farming at different scales in the immediate area, so that we’ve got a local approved supply chain of high quality, sustainable food.”
He said he expected the project to be complete in 2032.
Lewes District Council leader Zoe Nicholson said the acquisition ensured the project “delivers what our residents have been promised – affordable homes, modern health facilities, and the vital flood defences our town needs.
“We have acted in the public interest, with prudence and ambition,” she added.
South Downs National Park Authority said: “We remain committed to working with the applicant, new landowners and all parties to help these complex proposals become a reality as soon as possible.
“Formal planning permission has yet to be issued as we are still awaiting the final required Section 106 legal agreements, securing affordable homes, healthcare facilities, bus provision and flood defences.
“It is now with the applicant, Human Nature, to resolve outstanding issues with any new landowners, so the Section 106 can be signed and formal planning permission can be issued.”
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