Developers urged to honour housing commitments

The leader of Mid Sussex District Council has criticised developers who secure planning permission for new homes but fail to build them.

Jonathan Ash-Edwards spoke at a meeting of the full council on January 26 following a question from Robert Eggleston (Lib Dem, Burgess Hill – Meeds).

Mr Ash-Edwards said: “Developers come to sit and argue – with their barristers – at planning inquiries and tell us about the need for new housing and about their ability to deliver on that site.

“They need to honour those commitments that they make when they sit in front of a planning inspector.”

This comes after MSDC paused work on its District Plan review, which would have allocated thousands of new homes at sites across the area.

The issue was first raised by the Local Government Association, which said more than 2.5 million homes had received planning permission from councils since 2009/10 but more than one million of those had not been built.

The association advocates the idea of giving councils powers to take action over un-built land, which has planning permission. This could include making it easier for councils to use compulsory purchase powers to buy the land, or charging developers full council tax for un-built homes once planning permission expires.

Government targets require Mid Sussex to build hundreds of homes each year. It has been performing well recently but it would only take one slow year for that performance to slump.

Mr Ash-Edwards said: “This council continually works with developers to try to facilitate and support the delivery of sites that have been approved and have been agreed through the proper process.”

“You cannot live in a planning permission,” he said.