Congratulations on campaign
I must congratulate you on the Sussex World campaign ‘Save our Sussex’ which is challenging the arbitrary housing targets foisted on local authorities by the imposition of the government’s Standard Method to calculate minimum housing need.
This method was introduced following a so-called consultation in late 2017. In March 2018 the government confirmed that although only just over 28 per cent of respondents were in favour, it would nevertheless be implemented unchanged, describing it as ‘simple and realistic’. I prefer to call it ‘naïve and unsound’.
This ‘flawed formula’ is now resulting in unachievable minimum housing targets which are calculated with no adjustment whatsoever for environmental considerations, as expertly pointed out in last week’s paper by Dr Roger Smith (CPRE).
For Horsham District, this means that the latest calculation (effective April 1, 2022) sets Horsham’s minimum housing need at 948 per year (increased from 897), with extra to assist Crawley still to go on top.
There is no recognition whatsoever of the need for development to achieve water neutrality to avoid harm to legally protected landscapes, as mandated by Natural England.
Fortunately, the new leader of HDC, Jonathan Chowen, has apparently recognised that Horsham’s new local plan must now invoke the ‘exceptional circumstances clause’ in national planning policy (NPPF), to agree a much lower target than the massive 1,100 per year promoted as sound by planning officers in July 2021. The leader’s revised approach is to be welcomed and, if successful, should help avoid the wholesale devastation of the district’s countryside.
However, until this (hopefully) much reduced number is determined and carries significant weight (in planning terms), developers will still be able to quote the higher 948 number in planning applications/appeals.
This will readily allow them to invoke the NPPF’s ‘tilted balance’ as Horsham does not have (and legally should not now have) such large housing numbers in its supply pipeline.
Speculative and unwanted development thereby has a much greater chance of approval. Readers will be aware of such applications within their own parishes. So, this is yet more nonsense in the NPPF which we urgently need our MP, Jeremy Quin, to ensure the Housing Minister addresses.
I have heard Mr Quin take credit for the government’s dropping of the ‘mutant algorithm’. But this was a universally rejected bodged variant of the Standard Method, fixed just to give the overall total 300,000 homes using the latest housing projections, i.e. not those dated 2014.
Its consequent dumping was no achievement, as it should never have seen the light of day.
The government eventually conceded that the change attracted just 27 percent support from respondents. Maybe 28 per cent support is the ‘approval threshold’ for government consultations?! Will Mr Quin support the ‘Save our Sussex’ campaign and openly call for the Standard Method to be scrapped?
PAUL KORNYCKY Cox Green, Rudgwick