Records relating to the development of Peacehaven

Documents given November 1977 (A2160)

The site of the Peacehaven Estate, a flat stretch on the cliffs between Newhaven and Brighton, was bought by Charles Neville in 1915 and staked out as small building plots. Many of these plots were granted as prizes in competitions mounted by Neville, one of which, to name the town, produced the appellation 'New Anzac-on-Sea', a name eventually changed to Peacehaven, another popular choice. The development of the estate, by Neville's South Coast Land and Resort Company, was delayed by the war, when the Ministry of Agriculture requisitioned the land but on its release in 1920 prospectuses and other publicity material were issued. Neville envisaged Peacehaven as a 'garden city by the sea', composed principally of bungalows along streets on a grid pattern. The reality was rather different: many roads were not made up, there was no sewerage and water supplies were poor. Many landowners had not chosen to build and this produced patchy and untidy development with many plots standing vacant: Peacehaven became a by-word for bad planning and ugliness and there was an attempt after the second world war to use the powers of the 1944 Town and Country Planning Act to purchase vacant land compulsorily and arrest development.