PEOPLE fighting plans to build on a nature reserve feel more determined after a meeting held to challenge the council went “stonkingly well”.

More than 100 residents from and environmentalists attended the public meeting on Monday night.

They are vehemently against the joint proposal from Hyde Housing and Brighton and Hove City Council to build 217 flats on Whitehawk Hill nature reserve.

The residents and several councillors at the meeting, held at St Cuthman’s Church in Whitehawk Way, voted unanimously against the plans for the flats.

Dave Bangs, a local naturalist and conservationist who has been heavily involved in the fight against the scheme, gave a presentation on the history and importance of the hill.

He said the list of attributes written about Whitehawk Hill “remind him of a row of medals on the chest of a veteran soldier attending the Armistice Day Remembrance”.

Mr Bangs discussed the importance of the area, including its recognition as a statutory Local Nature Reserve in 1997 and the fact it was voted by the council to be part of the National Park in 2002.

He said the area has suffered terrible neglect despite it “having multiple public values which make it the equal of the Royal Pavilion”.

Mr Bangs said: “Whitehawk people should not be forced to choose between their green spaces and their homes. They deserve both.

“We must find housing solutions which do not demand that poor communities pay the costs, and which ask better-off communities to fairly contribute.”

Many Whitehawk residents at the meeting spoke about their “delight” spotting the badgers, foxes and bats that have long bred and lived on the hill.

Mr Bangs, who said the meeting went “stonkingly well” said: “We were told of the finding of a young adder by the hill path this spring.”

Residents including Anne Glow, who has lived in Kingfisher Court in Albourne Close for more than 30 years, spoke of their support for new social housing but spoke of the “overcrowding” from which Whitehawk Hill already suffers.

Ms Glow said: “The Whitehawk Valley is a bottleneck and traffic only has one way in and one way out.

“Services have already been lost and cut and schools and GP surgeries over-subscribed, whilst parking problems will get worse.

“We fully support housing for those who need it, but the council need to look at more appropriate places.”

Freelance ecologist Richard Bickers said the environmental surveys were “not thorough” and the lack of important information about the quality nature reserve was simply to “justify the scheme”.

The meeting was attended by Labour councillor Nancy Platts, and Green councillor Alex Phillips. and Conservative councillor Mary Mears sent apologies for failing to attend but “offered her full support”.

A city council spokesman said: “The site has been identified for housing in the Draft City Plan Part Two, following the need to look for sites for 1,000 new homes on the city’s urban fringe to help meet the city’s housing requirements established in the City Plan Part One.

“Landscape and ecology appraisals have been carried out on the site, which found that housing can be developed without significant adverse impacts on the Local Nature Reserve as long as certain ecological mitigations are in place.”

“The first round of consultation was held in October, and the feedback received in now being considered.”