Negotiations over where hundreds of new homes should be built in Horsham have ground to a halt after the government published proposed new housebuilding targets.
Horsham District Council has drawn up a detailed document called a local plan, setting out where and when new homes would be built up to the year 2040.
A series of 11 sessions with a planning inspector began last week – who voiced concerns on day one about its soundness and legal compliance as well as the duty to cooperate- i.e. how many more homes it should build on behalf of neighbouring areas which don’t have enough room to meet their targets.
The sessions were set to run to January 21 – but yesterday the council sent out emails informing people that all other hearing sessions had been cancelled.
Inspector Luke Fleming, who was appointed to examine the Plan by the Secretary of State had asked for more information on the duty to cooperate, which the council was working to provide.
At the start of the second hearing, Mr Fleming said he was “a little bit more concerned” than he had been on day one.
And on Thursday (December 12), he told those present that he was pondering whether a pause might be in order.
Any concerns Mr Fleming may have had were added to when the government announced a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework on Thursday, which included higher housebuilding targets.
While the examination was being carried out under the September 2023 version of the framework, the changes in the new version needed to be considered. And the council itself would have to formulate a response to the new framework.
Mr Fleming said such changes had happened before during other examinations and it had been quite simple for councils to come up with a response with little impact on the examination.
But this time he said he was ‘a bit nervous’, adding: “It’s not as simple as it was before.”
Arundel and South Downs MP Andrew Griffith welcomed the news about what he called a ‘flawed’ Local Plan.
During one of the sessions he said: “I am not against making a plan. It is simply that I am against this particular plan.
“Notwithstanding the no doubt good endeavours that people have approached it with, it is not one that should be made.”
