Lack of a five-year supply of housing land has been a ‘significant factor’ in allowing developers to build hundreds of homes, says councillor

Such was the message from John Milne, cabinet member for planning & infrastructure, during a meeting of the full council on Wednesday (April 24).

Councils are obliged to have a five-year supply of deliverable sites to show that they can meet the government’s house-building targets.

Horsham only has a 2.9-year supply, which Mr Milne described as ‘excceptionally low’.

As a result, a number of developments which the council may not have wanted have been allowed through, often by planning inspectors who have overturned decisions to refuse planning permission.

The key way to maintain a five-year supply of housing land is to allocate sites in the Local Plan.

But delays in Horsham’s Plan, coupled with disruption from Covid and new Water Neutrality rules has seen the authority fall short.

Mr Milne said that since October 2021, when the council lost its five-year supply, until the end of March, 850 permissions had been granted.

He added: “Our five-year supply – or lack of – was a significant factor in most of those.”

Among those sites were 83 homes at Duckmoor Farm, Billingshurst, 170 at New Place Farm, Pulborough, 78 at Ravenscroft, Storrington, and 133 at Lower Broadbridge Farm, Broadbridge Heath.

That total could have been much higher without the limitations of Water Neutrality.

Mr Milne told councillors that there were applications for another 1,500 or so houses in the pipeline, all of which claimed to have their own Water Neutrality solutions.

He added: “Councillors will remember that the Local Plan we approved last December set a target of just 480 per annum for the first five years of our Local Plan, which is the lowest this century.

“That means that the number of houses potentially coming through from speculative applications threatens to exceed our entire Local Plan allocation over the next five years.

“This is the reason why it was so important to pass a plan efficiently and I thank all members who gave their support.”

The Local Plan consultation has now closed and the council aims to submit the Plan in June, with examination hearings expected in November or December.

Mr Milne said: “From that point the Plan will start to have significant weight in planning terms, which will increase our ability to resist inappropriate applications.

“However, it’s not until next spring or even summer that we can expect the Plan to reach formal adoption according to the schedule we are obliged to follow and restore our land supply completely.”