Councillors see the plan on 17 September: £2,389,096 of the district's £3.09m strategic developer pot held back to unlock 85% government funding for the A259.

Lewes District Council is being asked to set aside £2,389,096 of developer money for the A259, and to leave it sitting there until the Department for Transport decides whether to fund the road. That is more than three quarters of the pot it currently has available.

The recommendation goes to the council’s Policy and Performance Advisory Committee on Thursday 17 September, and then to Cabinet on 1 October. It is classed as a Key decision.

The money is Community Infrastructure Levy, the charge the council has levied on new development in the district since 2015. The report, published in full on the council’s democracy site, is in the name of Councillor Laurence O’Connor, Cabinet Member for Planning and Infrastructure, and Chief Executive Robert Cottrill.

Where the developer money has gone

The council has collected £24,889,790.91 in CIL since the charging schedule was adopted in 2015, up to August 2026. The report splits that six ways, and the six figures add up exactly to that total:

Pot Collected since 2015 What it is for
Strategic Pot £12,337,768.12 Strategic infrastructure, bid for by providers
Neighbourhood Portion £5,245,190.80 Passed to town and parish councils with adopted neighbourhood plans
Local Fund Pot £3,680,022.11 Local and community infrastructure
Community Pot £2,252,550.15 Local and community infrastructure
Admin £1,244,489.55 Collection and enforcement costs
Community Small Projects Pot £129,770.18 Small community schemes

Most of the Strategic Pot has already been spent or committed. The amount actually held in it on 26 August 2026 was £3,093,841.98. The A259 proposal would put a hold on £2,389,096.13 of that, or about 77 per cent.

The report is explicit that this is a hold rather than a payment: “This decision does not allow for the release of CIL funds held by Lewes District Council at this time.” Money would only leave the account if the DfT bid succeeds, and that would need a further Cabinet report.

It is equally explicit about the cost of holding it. “Until such time the bid to DfT by ESCC has been decided, 15% of the current schemes estimated cost in Lewes area will not be available for other infrastructure projects.”

How much of the Lewes strategic CIL pot the A259 proposal would hold A bar chart. The strategic Community Infrastructure Levy pot held 3,093,841 pounds on 26 August 2026. The proposal would hold 2,389,096 pounds of it for the A259 Major Road Network package, about 77 per cent, leaving about 704,745 pounds for anything else. The figure is based on 2023 estimates and the report says it is expected to rise. £2.39m of £3.09m would be held for one road Lewes District Council's strategic CIL pot, and the proposed hold for the A259 package. In the strategic pot, 26 August 2026 £3,093,841.98 Proposed hold for the A259 package £2,389,096.13 77% That leaves about £704,745 in the strategic pot for everything else. The £2.39m is a 2023 estimate. The report says it is expected to increase. Source: Lewes District Council, CIL Strategic Pot Update report, 17 September 2026. Graphic by The Lewes Post
The hold would tie up roughly three quarters of the pot until the Department for Transport decides.

Why the council is being asked now

The A259 is the coast road through Peacehaven, Newhaven and Seaford, and it is on the government’s Major Road Network. East Sussex County Council, as the transport authority, has been trying to get it funded for three years.

The report’s timeline:

  • October 2023: the county council submits a Strategic Outline Business Case to government, based on schemes identified by the A259 Corridor Study and the Transport for the South East investment plan. The package is accepted onto the Major Road Network programme.
  • June 2025: after the Spending Review, government says pre-programme entry schemes like this one must be re-evaluated.
  • September 2025: the county council completes the DfT’s review questionnaire.
  • 26 March 2026: government confirms the A259 project stays on the programme, and that every Major Road Network scheme now needs a local contribution of at least 15 per cent of the total cost.
  • September 2026: the county council and Lewes District Council draft the Outline Business Case, with updated costs.
  • August 2027: the final business case goes to the DfT.
  • Winter 2027 at the earliest: construction could start, with completion expected by December 2029.

The report says the bid “has made it to the ‘second round’” but that “without the local contribution, the bid is unlikely to meet the DfT’s criteria for consideration into the next stage”. The alternative, it says, would mean losing “the potential additional 85% of monies that could be realised through government funding”.

What the report does not say

Two gaps are worth naming, because they are the things a resident would want to know.

It does not list the schemes. The report describes the package in general terms: measures that “aim to address safety, barriers to walking and cycling, barriers to inequality and deprivation, climate emergency and the economy”. It names no junction, no crossing and no stretch of road in Peacehaven, Newhaven or Seaford. The county council’s own earlier description of the study area is the A259 from Peacehaven through to Exceat.

The £2.39m is an old number. It is 15 per cent of estimates in the 2023 Strategic Outline Business Case, and the report states plainly that “it is expected that these estimates will increase with the revised Outline Business Case”. The sum the council finally has to find is likely to be larger than the one councillors will see on Thursday.

The report also records that the council’s legal section reviewed it on 9 September, and that no Local Government Reorganisation implications were identified. That last point matters locally, because three of the district’s wards were due to move into Brighton and Hove before the reorganisation programme was paused, and two of them are in Peacehaven, on the A259.

What it means for you

  • Nothing is being spent yet. This is a decision to hold money, not to release it. Construction cannot start before winter 2027 on the council’s own timeline.
  • If your parish or town council was hoping to bid for strategic CIL, the pot shrinks. Roughly £704,745 would be left uncommitted in the Strategic Pot while the DfT decides. The Neighbourhood Portion, which goes directly to town and parish councils with adopted neighbourhood plans, is a separate pot and is not affected.
  • You can watch it. The Policy and Performance Advisory Committee meets at 5pm on Thursday 17 September in rooms 209 and 210 at Marine Workshops, Railway Quay, Newhaven, BN9 0ER. The meeting is webcast, and the full reports pack is published in advance. Cabinet takes the decision on 1 October.
  • CIL cannot be spent on affordable housing. Planning practice guidance rules it out, so this money was never available for that.

We publish planning decisions and applications for the district on our Lewes planning news page, and this week’s closures on the A259 and elsewhere are on the roadworks and travel page.

Sources