The Local Government Association (LGA) has warned that developers are struggling to recruit skilled labour to build new homes leaving them “stranded without the skilled employees needed to deliver on the Government's ambitions for housebuilding” (LGA media release 17Aug15). This should of course signal to Horsham District Council and the District’s MPs, Jeremy Quin and Nick Herbert, that the ability of developers to build at least 800 new houses per year in Horsham District in all years to 2031, as required by the Planning Inspectorate, must be in doubt. This matters because when as now Horsham District Council is unable to demonstrate a deliverable five-year housing supply, because developers cannot build the requisite number of houses, it will be the Council not the developers, who will be blamed and held to account by the Inspectorate. Empowered by the NPPF, developers will continue to exploit the Appeal system to override objectors and gain approvals for unallocated sites on countryside adjoining villages, and thereby add to their land banks.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Roger F Smith

For CPRE Sussex (Horsham District)