SUSSEX was invaded almost a thousand years ago and the victorious Normans changed the course of history.

But there is another more insidious invasion taking place today with results that will be far more profound.

Developers ruined most of the coastline before the Second World War as they catered for the common desire to live near the sea.

They stopped only when the people rebelled and forced the introduction of planning controls which ensured there could be no more monstrosities such as Peacehaven.

Groups such as the Society of Sussex Downsmen (now the South Downs Society) created a climate protecting the most beautiful parts of those chalk-capped hills.

The two Sussex county councils made sure that other precious areas such as the High Weald and Ashdown Forest were also sacrosanct.

But the pressure on the rest of Sussex has been enormous and is proving almost impossible to resist.

Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath have long since become almost one long linear town stretching out near the railway line to London.

They are swallowing up settlements nearly such as Keymer and Hassocks.

Crawley and Horsham are also forming a huge swathe of suburbia in the north of the county, which shows little sign of halting. Southwater and Broadbridge Heath have been engulfed by it.

Small villages such as South Heighton have become large ones and bigger villages like Ashington have become little towns.

But the minor villages are still losing their shops and pubs while the sizeable places rarely have the school places and doctors’ surgeries to cope with the influx of newcomers.

Roads cannot cope with the demand and in Sussex they are twice as busy as the national average. There is constant pressure to widen them.

Where this is done as at Clapham near Worthing, motorway style junctions scar the countryside while pushing the congestion a few miles away rather than eliminating it.

Where this is not done as on many sections of the A27 and A272, the roads become death traps and are full of fumes.

Viewed on the approach from Brighton, Hurstpierpoint looks much the same as it has for years. But from the other side it is a different story.

Lovely little lanes that were a delight for walkers and cyclists have been turned into building sites as new homes have emerged.

Local resistance has led to the defeat of some schemes but the developers nearly always come back for more.

The realigned A23 has brought traffic noise day and night to the western side of the village while the cars of newcomers choke the pretty high street.

Little attempt is made in most places to blend the new homes into the local scene although there are honourable exceptions such as Bolnore Village near Haywards Heath.

Look at the housing development on the northern side of Henfield and you could be in an unattractive London suburb such as Hayes rather than the Sussex countryside.

Between Washington and Sullington on the A283 there is a development so alien in colour, design and location that it makes anyone with a scintilla of architectural sensibility want to shudder.

There is an insatiable desire by many folk to live in Sussex, one of the most beautiful English counties, with a mild climate and good access to London.

But in allowing all the new homes, the authorities are slowly suffocating the qualities that everyone loves so much.

They are also squeezing out young local people who can no longer afford to live in their own county and who have to settle somewhere else.

Far too little of the new housing is at affordable rents and the continuity of generations in many places is being lost. You seldom hear a Sussex accent anywhere these days.

I could weep when I travel around Sussex these days and see that almost everywhere cow fields are being replaced by bulldozers.

It is slowly becoming one great soulless slab of suburbia affordable only to Londoners rather than locals, while small patches of countryside are preserved as a reminder of all we have lost.

The Normans do not even bother to come here much anymore, while to find true traditional countryside of the kind that was once commonplace in Sussex, the nearest place is often Normandy.