Current status

rt Hon Michael Gove
minister for housing

rt Hon. Michael Gove. Email Dec 2021

Dear Mr Gove,

We congratulate you on your appointment as the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Under your party’s ‘Build Back Better’ policy, our small area of Sussex, Horsham District, finds itself obliged to consider proposals for no fewer than nine large-scale development sites of 800 houses plus. Of these nine sites,  three are for whole new towns of around 3,500 houses – all to be built on greenfield sites.

We are one of several campaign groups working to protect the precious Horsham countryside and natural habitat from being concreted over and lost forever. You need to be aware that the letter pages of our local newspapers are filled with letters lamenting the loss of countryside to all these new towns.

Unless Government policy changes, Horsham District will have to build 1,100 houses or more, every year for the next seventeen years – nearly 20,000 in total by 2036.

According to the 2011 census there were 131,300 people living in Horsham District at that time. An additional 20,000 homes would increase the population by 48,000. A potential increase, in only 17 years, of nearly 40%! Every aspect of local infrastructure, and especially water supply, will not cope.

We welcome the Government’s renewed commitment to build new homes on brownfield land. We particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment at the recent Conservative party conference that “there will be no more building on greenfield sites”.

We think that planning policy needs to be dramatically rethought in this country. Climate change means that we need to conserve every acre of land capable of sequestering carbon. We must not lose any more natural habitat to property development.

The pace of change in the way we work, travel, commute and shop means that multitudes of existing properties, be they offices or retail shops, are going to have to be repurposed. This means that the number of ‘Brownfield’ sites is going to increase exponentially in coming years. We know that building a new property produces considerably more carbon than repurposing an existing building. We also know that ‘brownfield’ often indicates post-industrial land still often well connected with infrastructure.

We also know that building more homes in the South-East in an effort to reduce prices, is a policy that has not worked, and will never work. Not only because property developers will not build houses if they are making less profit, but also because if you build more houses, you simply suck more people into an area that is already overcrowded.

On behalf of the voters in Horsham District, and in the light of the climate emergency that we face, we urge you to be bold in future planning policy and stop any further loss and destruction of carbon capturing countryside and wildlife habitat.

Julian Trumper

www.bigstand.co.uk


Cllr. Jonathan Chowan appointed HDC Leader

Jonathan Chowen (Con, Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead) was appointed during an extraordinary meeting of the council this evening (Friday December 3).
He replaces Paul Clarke, who stepped down last month after only six months in the role.

Councillor Jonathan Chowen, the newly elected Leader of Horsham District Council, pledges a further £1million for climate mitigation and puts the environment and a 

“Our Plan – Our Vision – Our District”

On Friday 3rd December 2021 Councillor Jonathan Chowen (Con, Cowfold, Shermanbury and West Grinstead) was unanimously elected as the new leader of Horsham District Council.

Commenting on his election, Councillor Chowen said: 

“It is an honour and a privilege and I am delighted to have been elected as Leader of the Council. I am looking forward to tackling the challenges facing our District and the priorities of our residents. 

“Our District is consistently recognised as one of the best places to live in England and only last week Horsham was quoted in the top twenty. 

“I want to protect and enhance Horsham town, our historic villages and beautiful countryside – not build all over it with imposed housing numbers that ignore the needs of our residents.  

On the paused ‘Local Plan’ review Councillor Chowen added: 

“The existing draft Plan necessarily met the targets set by the Government through large scale house building on greenfield sites. Recent events have made this Plan undeliverable. “Natural England’s position statement on water neutrality pauses all development in the District until a plan can be devised to mitigate the impact of Southern Water abstracting ground water near Pulborough to supply our needs. Our consultants have already determined that there are no feasible options for the local authority to achieve 100% water neutrality on its own. This is a wider problem which will require Government assistance and funding.

“The enforced pause of development means that we will have to reset our housing numbers because the current Government targets are clearly no longer achievable in this Plan period. Michael Gove has also signalled that he plans to re-visit outdated assumptions in the standard methodology for calculating housing numbers.

“Large scale housing developments will be much more problematic and not feasible until there is substantial investment in large-scale mitigating infrastructure, which could take years.  

“Therefore the need for large-scale strategic sites such as those proposed at Adversane, Mayfield, Rookwood and Buck Barn, or the 1200 houses a year target, now looks very unlikely. 

“Using our current plan as a starting point, we will work very closely with the local communities, and the Parish and Neighbourhood Councils. Our focus will be to address their local housing needs, aspirations and priorities. We must ensure that the housing we do deliver is high quality, eco-friendly in design and we must prioritise brownfield sites where possible. 

“Also, we will need to consider the real world impact of planning delays to businesses and individuals, its social impact on investment, affordable homes, schools and recovery from the pandemic.

“We have to let our communities live, grow, thrive and evolve, otherwise they become moribund and unsustainable. We need the energy and enthusiasm of children and young people and the experience and wisdom of those in their later years. This will help to build diverse and sustainable communities.

“We also need thriving businesses, a strong rural economy, more home-working and encouragement for our young people to live and work in the District. This will help to preserve and enhance our way of life, culture, heritage, our environment and its wildlife.

“That is why the Council will be making a substantial further investment of £1million in our environment, delivering climate change initiatives and achieving carbon neutrality.

“My team and Horsham District Council are committed and determined to meet the challenges that we face, on behalf of our residents and the generations to come.”

For media queries please email  press@horsham.gov.uk .

revised Local Plan at the heart of the Council’s new vision.

 


Letter to Mr Jenrick MP, Housing Minister

What we are actively doing, response from council, next steps.

Read the HDC response to proposals and how people commented.

Read what the papers have to say!…..BigStand fights back with published articles.

This page lists many of the questions we pose to developers and councils.

What are the stages that we now face following Regulation 18 submission?

Letter to all councillors

Horsham District Council response

Response to planning proposals

HDC inital outcomes based on Regulation 18 submission

This report details the findings from the various planning proposals. Of major interest is the table of respondents and how they view the proposed site, see image below:

HDC Response to BigStand