Considerably in excess of the Council’s objective assessment of the District’s need for new houses, which would have required a build rate of 650 new houses pa (13,000 in total), the huge target imposed by the Inspector will require yet more countryside to be allocated for development.

To justify the imposed target, the Inspector has used as his starting point the household projection for the District of 696 houses pa provided by the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) – notwithstanding that another Planning Inspector in deciding an Appeal in June cautioned that the weight given to CLG projections “should take account of the fact that they have not been tested or moderated against relevant constraints”.

Having accepted the CLG projection for Horsham District as if it were an immutable truth, the Inspector has increased it to take into account employment growth forecasts, which he acknowledged should be treated with caution, and the ‘unmet’ housing needs of other Councils.

Since he does not explain how he has arrived at a number for the latter, one must conclude that the allocation is arbitrary. Disturbingly, too, the Inspector makes no allowance for economic and market uncertainty because, as he explained at his examination of the plan in November, the Government’s planning policies do not permit him to do so – even though, as was demonstrated during the recent recession, developers will not build more houses than can be sold at an acceptable-to-them profit and will reduce build rates to maintain profit margins, irrespective of set targets.

Even though the target imposed by the Inspector is dependent on untested and questionable presumptions and assumptions it will be the Council, not developers, who will be held accountable by the Planning Inspectorate should the Inspector’s target not be achieved - and communities will be vulnerable to developer-imposed development at Appeal, as they are now.

This brings into question the way in which local plans are examined and house-building targets are decided – by one individual, an unelected official, whose decisions cannot be challenged - and who cannot be held to account by councils and communities should his decisions prove to be flawed.

Contrary to the misleading claim by the Government’s Housing and Planning Minister, Brendon Lewis MP, that the Government has “shifted power from Whitehall and the town hall to local people” (The Sunday Times, 16 Nov 14), power on planning matters rests with the Planning Inspectorate and their political masters.