The 47 hectare green field in question was once connected to the wider South Downs but was left stranded by the construction of the bypass which rendered it difficult to access and unviable to farm. When the boundaries for the new South Downs National Park were determined, the valley wasn’t included because it was not deemed to be of sufficient landscape quality.

From the air, it is easy to see why; apart from its western bank it consists mainly of unexceptional scrub deeply scarred by the tracks of joy riders who use it as a motocross course. It contrasts sharply with the lush, green rolling Downs on the other side of the A27.

Of course, bikers using it as an unofficial motocross are breaking the law because it is private land. As the “no trespassing” signs around the perimeter testify, anyone who sets foot on it is guilty, whether scramble bikers or dog walkers or ramblers. Many people think that it belongs to the city but it has actually been privately owned by the Cook family for over seven decades.

It is a shame that, apart from a tiny patch with SNCI designation, access to such a large expanse – the equivalent of 64 football pitches – is denied to the people; even more so because the Brighton & Hove Open Space, Sports & Recreation Study highlights this as a location that requires more publicly accessible open space. And that isn’t the only type of space that is in short supply; the need for a new primary school in the area is becoming increasingly desperate.

The Green Administration is proposing to include the valley in the City Plan [Core Strategy] so that part of it could be developed to provide much needed homes and a new school; all with the impressive environmental credentials that the city demands. It could also accommodate some ultra-sustainable employment space linked to the universities just five minutes along the bypass. Well over a third of the site wouldn’t be built on at all becoming open parkland properly managed to encourage biodiversity. The development could follow the principles of One Planet Living like BioRegional Quintain's One Brighton in the New England Quarter.

Some people have already started to lament the loss of a green field but in truth we don’t have one to lose. It belongs to the Cook family who have shown themselves admirably willing to work with the city’s planners to address the city’s needs.

If we play our cards right the city could gain a green space but if we "save" the valley, we may see it disappear. Under the coalition government’s National Planning Policy Framework [NPPF] [see earlier story] if Toads Hole Valley isn’t included in our City Plan there will be nothing to stop the owners from submitting a planning application for as many houses as the site can carry. The NPPF proposes a “presumption” in favour of developments if they are deemed sustainable [and there is no legally binding definition] [see earlier story].

Fortunately the owners have no desire to do this preferring instead to work with the local authority to provide a comprehensive mixed use scheme to meet the long term needs of the city. They have owned this site for 70 years; no one could accuse them of having short-term interests.

The politicians who are busy compiling petitions to “save” the site need to ask themselves who they are actually saving it for. The 12,000 people on the Council’s housing waiting list or the 6,000 additional people who will be looking for a job by 2014 or the 150 children who will be shoehorned into already overstretched primary schools this year won't thank them for "saving" something that we can only look at from afar.

It is unfortunate that the Valley is in a ward [Hangleton & Knoll] that is split between two political parties, Labour and Conservative, each playing to their respective galleries. And it was telling that, during the earlier consultation on the four options papers for the City Plan [see earlier story], not one single consultation group voted to “save” the valley, instead they all saw the sense of developing a part of it with desperately needed homes and workspace so that the rest could be gifted to the city and people could enjoy it without breaking the law.

There's no room for party politics in this debate.