Councillors have recommended that Arun District Council lift the pause on its Local Plan update.
The Local Plan, which lays out the framework for future development in the area, is long overdue for a review, with the process being paused in 2020 and 2021 due to uncertainly about proposed government changes to planning guidelines.
Since then the plan, which was adopted in 2018, has become out of date, leaving the district vulnerable to unwanted development.
During a meeting of the planning policy committee on Thursday (June 8), most members agreed to recommend to the full council that the review process be restarted, saying there was more danger in doing nothing.
Arundel and South Downs MP Andrew Griffith said he was ‘disappointed’ by the recommendation, warning that the lift ‘could see the development of over 11,000 extra houses’ in the area in the coming years.
But, as was pointed out by Neil Crowther, the council’s group head of planning, the authority was in something of a Catch-22 situation as having an out-of-date Local Plan and no five-year supply of housing land made it very easy for developers to get what they wanted.
Mr Crowther said: “We are already at a stage where we’re planning the district by appeal.”
Referring to applications for Rustington golf course, Pagham and Barnham within the last year or so, he added: “We refused all of those permissions because we felt they were inappropriate locations and poor sites – they were all allowed at appeal.
“That will only get worse and go on for longer without a Local Plan.”
Ricky Bower (Con, East Preston) was not in favour of unpausing the review.
Instead he said the council should be ‘screaming at’ providers such as Southern Water and West Sussex Highways to deliver on promised infrastructure – and should not be looking to review the Local Plan until that was done.
Mr Bower added: “The existing Local Plan, however much some members may feel it is not working, needs to be made to work, because the issue of infrastructure is pretty fundamental to the original concept of the Local Plan that we currently have.”
He said he could see ‘nothing but danger’ for the authority if the review went ahead before it was known for sure what policies the government would be putting in place.
Martin Lury (Lib Dem, Bersted) shared Mr Bower’s frustration about the lack of infrastructure but said a review of the Local Plan should have been triggered when the council failed to deliver on its housing number two or three years running.
He told the meeting that developers had failed to build more than 6,000 homes for which they had received permission.
None of those homes count towards the council’s housing targets.
Mr Lury added: “Our Local Plan at the moment is five years [old] and therefore out of date. If we do absolutely nothing, there’s nothing to stop the government taking over, charging us for a new Local Plan.
“There are risks on all sides but I think there are greater risks to sit back and do nothing.”
Looking at the government’s housing targets for Arun, the committee agreed they were ‘ridiculous’.
The committee recommended to the full council that the leaders of all political groups would jointly sign a letter to the government on the matter.
