Mid Sussex Planning and Housing Fiasco

Residents will be concerned to hear that the Inspector has turned down the District Council’s plan.

The ongoing absence of an approved plan means that the council misses out on developer money to put towards the local infrastructure. This money would help pay for local services, transport, communications, leisure and other amenities. The amount of money is considerable – about 6 times the yearly council tax revenue in one go… So at least £10,000 per new home. The council has not had an approved plan for over 7 years and at least 1,000 new homes have been built in the time – so over £10 million has been lost to local people through the council’s failure.

The lack of a plan means that the homes built don’t count towards the eventual housing target – when that is finally agreed.

This lack of a plan also means that the area remains vulnerable to speculative housing development and is therefore of considerable concern to all local residents. Obviously speculators will be keener to build here as they don’t have to contribute to the developer money…

Resolving this issue as a top priority should be the Council’s objective, instead they seem to be in disagreement with the inspector.

One last point is that the neighbourhood plans that each parish and town has been working on will sadly need to be changed in due course to reflect the new homes built in the interim and to accommodate the new housing targets.