Encouraging news on planning issues
Iam encouraged by the report from independent planning consultants, Lichfields, that revealed changes to the National Planning framework to scrap mandatory housing targets are already making a real difference.
The Times report that in recent months 15 local authorities have cut the number of homes they intend to build, South Staffordshire council has reduced its target by more than 40 per cent and Hertsmere council in Hertfordshire has cut its plans for new development by 25 per cent.
It throws down the gauntlet to local councils here in West Sussex to do the same. It is simply not right to be using precious green spaces or productive farmland to build homes in rural areas unless that is the wish of the community.
Some falsely claim residents are ‘NIMBYS’ for this but I am afraid that just doesn’t stand up. Almost all neighbourhood plans developed by communities themselves do make provision for some homes for genuinely local people.
And it is our big urban areas like London and Brighton which are not providing the needed dwellings for young people despite sitting on top of healthcare, education and transport facilities that rural dwellers could only dream of. I am strong advocate of Community
Land Trusts to build houses on a sensible scale for local people, decided by the community itself.
Last week, supporting residents faced with yet another unsuitable development, I held an impromptu meeting on a street corner in Steyning about rural overdevelopment. Eighty residents turned out to share their views on the Kings Barn Lane / Glebe Farm development.
This is a wholly unsuitable development in the Weald to Waves green corridor which was stealthily inserted into the Horsham District Plan despite never being in a neighbourhood plan and rejected by previous administrations.
No Council which was serious about nature, protecting the cleanliness of the River Adur or climate change could ever approve such a site so what are HDC playing at?