Sir,

Horsham District Council (HDC) seems to believe that once its local plan – the Horsham District Planning Framework has been approved by the Planning Inspectorate the District and its communities will be protected from opportunist applications from developers.

However, the experience of Blaby District Council, Leicestershire, whose local plan was submitted for examination after the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and found sound by the Planning Inspectorate, and adopted February 2013, indicates that HDC is mistaken.

Following the adoption of the Blaby District Local Plan a developer submitted an application to build up to 220 dwellings on a greenfield site, which had not been included in the recently adopted local plan.

The developer maintained that the policies for the supply of housing in the recently adopted plan were out-of-date on the grounds that contrary to the requirements of the NPPF the Council could not demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply against the target set by the plan and that the target itself, being derived from the abolished Regional Strategy, was out-of-date and an under-estimate.

The NPPF stipulates that where a local plan is out-of-date, permission should be granted unless any adverse impacts demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in the NPPF as a whole.

Fortunately for Blaby District Council the Inspector” refused the application even though he found that there was evidence to indicate that the local plan’s housing target “may be an under-estimate”.

The Planning Inspector’s deliberations on how Blaby District’s 5-year supply of housing should be determined are relevant to Horsham District, because the District is already in deficit against the HDPF’s proposed annual house-building target of 650pa. Consequently, developers may - as they do now - seek to exploit the shortfall after the HDPF has been adopted.

To determine what the District’s five-year supply of housing should be, Horsham District Council, in compliance with instructions from a Planning Inspector, rigidly applies the so-called ‘Sedgefield’ approach whereby the District’s accumulated shortfall is included in the 5-year requirement, resulting in a huge impossible-to-achieve target. This is instead of the more reasonable ‘Liverpool’ approach whereby any shortfall in housing delivery would be accommodated over the remaining plan period.

In determining the Blaby Appeal, the Planning Inspector found that there were “good, pragmatic, local reasons” why Blaby District’s “historic undersupply should be addressed over a longer period” and that “the rate at which housing will be provided must take account of the practical deliverability of that strategy”. He therefore decided against the ‘Sedgefield’ approach in favour of the ‘Liverpool’ approach (“or a hybrid version of it”).

Hopefully, Horsham District Council’s decision makers are aware of and have studied the Blaby Appeal (S62A/2014/001 date: 22 July 2014) and have considered the implications for Horsham District and the HDPF and have noted the Inspector’s pragmatic approach to determining 5-year housing supply?

Yours faithfully,

Dr R F Smith

For CPRE Sussex-Horsham District