Crawley Down's new village hall on the Haven sports field car park goes to committee on 8 October, recommended for approval. Size, parking, trees, objections.

Plans for a new village hall in Crawley Down are recommended for approval. Mid Sussex District Council’s planning committee will decide on them this Thursday, 8 October.

The hall would be built on the western side of the Haven Sports Field car park in Hophurst Lane. It would replace the village hall on Turners Hill Road, according to the planning officer’s report for application DM/25/3155.

The application comes from the hall’s trustees. It goes to committee rather than being decided by officers because the council owns the land. Worth Parish Council supports it.

Third time at planning

A hall on this site has been approved before, under applications made in 2019 and 2022, with several approved changes in between. The report says that permission lapsed on 9 December 2025 without the hall being built, so the trustees have had to apply again.

What would be built

The report describes a brick and weatherboarded building about 24 metres wide and 15 metres deep. It would contain:

  • a large hall with a sports court
  • a small hall
  • a committee room
  • a kitchen, toilets, storerooms and a plant room

The large hall would be about 7.5 metres high at its tallest. The single-storey parts would be about 4.3 metres.

The car park currently has 14 spaces. The plans would increase that to 17, including one disabled space, plus five cycle spaces.

Five trees would be felled: two hornbeams, two beeches and an oak. The officer calls this “regrettable” but says replacement planting can be required by condition.

Objections

Five letters of objection were received. The concerns listed in the report include:

  • more traffic from the hundreds of homes built nearby since the first permission
  • the hall’s height and its closeness to neighbouring houses
  • a legal covenant on the land
  • doubts that the trustees have the money to build it
  • the Haven Centre next door, which objectors say is underused

The officer says covenants and funding are private legal matters, not planning ones. West Sussex County Council as highway authority, Southern Water and the council’s environmental protection team did not object, subject to conditions.

What it means for you

  • The decision is on Thursday. The planning committee meets at 4pm on 8 October. The papers are on the council’s website.
  • Building hours would be limited. A proposed condition restricts construction to 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, with no work on Sundays or bank holidays.
  • Evening use would have a cut-off. Condition 19 limits use to 8.30am to 10.30pm every day. Its wording refers to a “commercial unit”, which looks like a drafting slip that councillors may want to correct.
  • Approval does not mean a start date. Permission was granted twice before and the hall was not built. Objectors have questioned the funding; the report does not address it because it is not a planning matter.

You can read the full application, plans and comments on the council’s planning portal. For other applications across the district, see our Mid Sussex planning news page.