He indicated that in light of this Decision, which he referred to as ‘case law’ the appellant and Horsham District Council might consider whether in the absence of an up-to-date local plan the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) 2008 projections for new households provide the most up-to-date figures for determining 5-year housing land supply, as opposed to South East Plan allocation for the District.

On the attached, I have underlined sections of particular interest. Note the comment at paragraphs:

25. I see the force of these arguments, but I am not persuaded that the inspector was entitled to use a housing requirement figure derived from a revoked plan, even as a proxy for what the local plan process may produce eventually. The words in paragraph 47( 1 ), "as far as is consistent with the policies set out in this Framework" remind one that the Framework is to be read as a whole, but their specific role in that sub-paragraph seems to me to be related to the approach to be adopted in producing the Local Plan.

26. I appreciate that the inspector here was indeed using the figure from the revoked East of England Plan merely as a proxy, but the government has expressly moved away from a "top-down" approach of the kind which led to the figure of 360 housing units required per annum

29. But there may be other factors as well. One of those is the planning context in which that shortfall is to be seen. The context may be that the district in question is subject on a considerable scale to policies protecting much or most of the undeveloped land from development except in exceptional or very special circumstances, whether because such land is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Park or Green Belt. If that is the case, then it may be wholly unsurprising that there is not a five year supply of housing land when measured simply against the unvarnished figures of household projections. A decision-maker would then be entitled to conclude, if such were the planning judgment, that some degree of shortfall in housing land supply, as measured simply by household formation rates, was inevitable. That may well affect the weight to be attached to the shortfall.

And perhaps most significant of all:

31.There seemed to be some suggestion by Hunston in the course of argument that a local planning authority, which did not produce a local plan as rapidly as it should, would only have itself to blame if the objectively-assessed housing need figures produced a shortfall and led to permission being granted on protected land, such as Green Belt, when that would not have happened if there had been a new-style local plan in existence. That is not a proper approach. Planning decisions are ones to be arrived at in the public interest, balancing all the relevant factors and are not to be used as some form of sanction on local councils . It is the community which may suffer from a bad decision, not just the local council or its officers.