An aristocrat is at odds with his local council after blocking plans for a green walkway linking two Sussex towns through his estate, which would give children a safe route to walk or cycle home from school.
Local people complain that to travel between Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath, they have to use two winding country roads with no pavements and fast traffic. Mid Sussex district council has proposed a “green path” through the lush fields and pretty woodland of the nearby area, where people could walk and cycle.
It would also give schoolchildren a healthy and safe way to travel to and from class, and reduce traffic on the main roads. This will become even more pressing as a secondary school is soon to be built between the two towns to accommodate 900 pupils and 70 staff.
But while some landowners have granted permission for these pathways, the most realistic routes proposed by the council would have to partly depend on the permission of a local estate, owned by a baronet.
Sir Richard Kleinwort has blocked permission for the viable routes proposed by the council, arguing it would take productive farmland from the estate to have a path running through, and that it may affect his agricultural activities.
The estate is now closed to the public, but is available for film and TV crews to hire as a location. According to the website his Arts and Crafts mansion is “set in 1,200 pristine acres”, and offers formal gardens and woodlands in the rolling countryside.
The estate has been owned by the Kleinwort banking dynasty since the 1800s. The family formed the investment bank Kleinwort Benson, which helped the British government with privatisation in the 20th century, advising on the flotation of British Aerospace, Cable & Wireless, Associated British Ports, British Telecom and Enterprise Oil.
Sir Richard’s grandfather, Ernest Kleinwort, played a vital role in the formation of the World Wildlife Fund, now World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and Sir Richard has been a member of its UK council of ambassadors since 2000.
Council documents show that for the routes to go ahead, they need “considerably more landowner support”, citing the lack of permission from the estate. There is one route the Kleinworts would allow, which is next to a busy railway line and the council has deemed too unsafe. Another, which they would allow in principle, is through an area that floods, so the council is unsure it can deliver it safely.
The council said: “The appraisal process has emphasised the fact that to enable any feasible route between the two towns, cooperation is required from the Heaselands estate. Most routes, including the two preferred routes K and L, were not necessarily supported by the Heaselands estate due to loss of agricultural land or interference to estate activities.”
When appointed vice-lord lieutenant of West Sussex, Kleinwort, who like his ancestors is also a banker, said he wanted to “give to Sussex, as much as possible”, adding: “We like to make a difference.”
But Anne Eves, a local councillor, said that because of the estate’s refusal to help with the path “everything has ground to a halt”, with all 16 routes either blocked by the estate or deemed unsuitable for development because of safety and cost reasons.
Eves said it was very difficult to travel between the towns without using a car: “At the moment, the two roads that link the two towns are very twisty and they have no pavements. They’re rural roads, so nobody can walk and you’d have to be a very brave cyclist. My husband actually says to me: ‘No way are you cycling on that road, it’s far too twisty.’ One way, you have to go uphill all the way so you get irate motorists behind you.”
She added: “For me, it is frustrating that one landowner can block a project which would be so useful for everyone else and would help the district achieve its net zero target.”
The Heaselands estate did not wish to comment.
