Ditchling Road South Downs National Park

Brighton & Hove City Council partnered with neighbouring authorities and the South Downs National Park (SDNP) to enhance sustainable access to our beautiful National Park. Ditchling Road is an important gateway into the National Park, so we created a supportive, welcoming and safe route to encourage people to walk, cycle and use public transport to get there from Brighton & Hove.

Consultation Results

Public consultation on improved access to the South Down National Park along Ditchling Road closed in September 2013 with 62% of those who responded in favour of the proposals overall.

A report was taken to Environment, Transport and Sustainability (ETS) Committee on 8 October 2013 seeking approval to proceed with construction of the off-road, shared use path and advertisement of a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to reduce the speed limit to 40mph.  The report to ETS committee also requested permission to further investigate the proposal to introduce open grazing.  Full details of the report along with the consultation results can be found here [PDF 25mb].

The recommendations outlined in the report were approved and implemented.

What we did

From Woodbourne Avenue to Coldean Lane, Ditchling Road and the green spaces either side are fully within the South Downs National Park boundary, we:

• Introduced a shared surface cycle and pedestrian path on the west grass verge area
• Improved the west side lay-by near to the A27 bridge at Coldean Lane
• Created wildflower areas for wildlife and bees in the new verge/bund areas

 The improvements were sensitive to the National Park environment and materials in keeping with the surroundings were used.

If you have any questions contact our Transport Projects team: