Councils submit their consultation responses

Councils in the area have submitted their responses to the Government consultation on changes to the planning system.

Arun District Council said the proposals were ‘hugely concerning for Arun’ – with its housing requirement to be increased by 52 per cent to over 2,000 dwellings a year.

The council’s response to the consultation was put together by councillor Martin Lury, cabinet member for planning.

His response questions how the Government-increased target of 337,000 homes per year has been calculated and why nearly all of this increase is located in the south east.

It also questions whether such targets are realistic in terms of the methodology used to come up with the figure and the deliverability of this figure.

Arun has over 4,000 dwellings with planning permission, with an average of only 600 a year being delivered by the developers, Mr Lury said.

The council objects to the significantly reduced delivery of affordable homes which could result in Arun losing approximately 250 affordable homes over the next 18 months, according to Mr Lury.

He said: “The proposals within the consultation from the Government are hugely concerning for Arun.

“They would place a significantly increased requirement on housing delivery at a time when there is little evidence of the development industry being able to deliver such high numbers.

“There is also concern about the impact such high numbers would have on the character of Arun and the ability of the infrastructure to cope.”

Meanwhile in its response to the consultation, Chichester District Council urged the Government to reconsider the way it calculates housing targets under the proposals. Councillor Susan Taylor, deputy leader and cabinet member for planning at Chichester District Council, said: “While there are some interesting proposals within the Government’s recommendations, our main concern is around the way it is proposing to assess local housing need.

“We believe that the Government should take account of wider issues, such as landscape and the environment, which are discussed in the Government’s separate Planning White Paper, before implementing these changes.

“Under the proposals, the figures for Chichester District would rise as a whole from 753 under the existing method to 1,120 homes per year.

“This will place significant pressure on the parts of the district that fall outside of the National Park, and which are included within our emerging Local Plan.

“While we are still working hard to deliver the Local

Plan Review as quickly as we can, we are very concerned about the Government’s proposals and what these could potentially mean to our district in the long-term. “While we fully understand the need to provide more housing and get the economy moving, we feel that the Government’s proposed approach would be damaging to our area and the country as a whole.

“Planning authorities currently consider the whole picture, from how we move around areas; how we can achieve higher environmental standards; how we can encourage healthy lifestyles; how we can protect our environment and wildlife; as well as carefully considering where development should be placed.

“The Government’s proposals don’t appear to provide enough consideration for these important factors. “For now, our focus is to continue to push forward with the Local Plan Review.

“We will keep our residents updated as things progress and make them aware of any feedback that we receive from the Government.”

The council’s full consultation response can be viewed by visiting www.chichester. gov.uk/governmentconsultations

The Sussex Wildlife Trust has also published its response to the consultation.

The charity said it was most concerned about two of the main proposals – the changes to the method for assessing local housing need, which it said would generate ‘astronomical’ new housing numbers for many Sussex districts – and extending the Permission in Principle to major development, which it said ‘could grant automatic planning permission for whole new towns and villages’.

To read its response in full, visit sussexwildlifetrust.org. uk/campaign/