Draft Mid Sussex DC District Plan for 2011 - 2031

MSDC was supposed to have a new long term strategic plan in place before 2011. It still hasn't got one, and the prospect of one being adopted has now receded until 2015 at the earliest. The latest stumbling block is the decision of the Planning Inspectorate on 2 December to require MSDC to withdraw its draft plan from its forthcoming public examination and to consult more effectively with its neighbouring local planning authorities over the best way in which their combined housing needs over the next 20 years should be met. The suspicion is that MSDC will now come under greater pressure from Councils like Brighton, Crawley, Horsham and Lewes - maybe others - to increase the number of houses that should be built in Mid Sussex in order to accommodate overspill housing needs of other Districts in Sussex - not something that is likely to find much favour amongst local residents. Any such pressure is bound to be backed by the housing developers operating here.

The Planning Inspectorate did not examine the evidence supporting MSDC's conclusion that its local housing needs over the 20 year plan period were for 10,600 new homes. Nor was the argument presented to the Inspector that the District's topography - the fact that 60% of the District's land is designated as part of either the South Downs National Park or the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - has the effect of limiting the degree of new building within Mid Sussex that is sustainable, irrespective of neighbouring authority need.

The Inspector's decision has provoked a sharp and pointed letter from the Leader of MSDC to the CEO of the Planning Inspectorate - see Attachments, below - to which, at the time of writing, no reply has been published.

CPRE will be meeting with MSDC in the next few weeks to learn more about the extent to which the Council expects to submit further evidence in support of, or revise, its plan, how long the process is likely to take, and how open they will be in the interim to considering input from organisations such as CPRE.

Neighbourhood Plans

Up to 20 towns and parishes in Mid sussex are in various (mostly reasonably advanced) stages of drafting their own neighbourhood plans; and that process is set to contine despite the continuing protracted absence of a district Plan to which they are supposed to be subordinate. But the process is fraught with challenges. Moreover there will be considerable turmoil at parish level if MSDC's own District Plan, whenever it is finally examined, requires a housing target that exceeds what finalised neighbourhood plans have promised to deliver.

Slaugham: Poor old Mid Sussex just isn't very good at planning. Not only has the District Council's own draft plan been withdrawn (for the third time) to be re-written, but the first (of 20) neighbourhood plans being developed within the District to reach its public examination - that of Slaugham Parish - has now been rejected by the Planning Inspectorate, as have two related proposed community right to build orders (one for a new village community centre in Handcross). The Inspector found that whilst the Neighbourhood Plan recognises the need for new housing development, the target it sets for the Plan period is not based on sufficiently robust evidence. She also held that the Council's Strategic Environmental Assessment was inadequate. The Inspector has identified the extra work required before she will re-examine the plan.

Cuckfield: Cuckfield's Plan has now been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for examination, and the parish council is waiting to hear what the examination process will consist of and how long it will take. After Slaugham's experience, it is difficult to predict the outcome, especially as the Planning Inspector will be the same individual who has rejected the Slaugham plan. If Cuckfield's plan passes its examination, it will be then put to a referendum within the parish.

Lindfield: There is considerable controversy over the proposed neighbourhood plan covering the village and rural parishes in Lindfield, with the Lindfield Preservation Society being amongst those highly and vocally critical of the draft Plan and the inadequacy of the evidence base that purports to support it. It remains to be seen whether the Parish Councils will amend their plan in the light of these and other criticisms before submitting it for District Council and public examination scrutiny.

Development proposals

Haywards Heath: The area most seriously threatened at present appears to be a northern arc of countryside north of Haywards Heath between Cuckfield and Lindfield. A scheme to develop Penlands Farm (part of the Borde Hill estate) for housing goes before MSDC's planning Committee shortly. CPRE has worked in co-operation with the Penlands Farm Action Group in opposing the application. A nearby application by Banner Homes to build 15 homes in front of grade II listed Sunte House was rejected by MSDC and we wait to hear whether that decision will be appealed. Meanwhile Crest Nicholson has just applied for permission to build an estate in open fields behind Sunte House that slope down towards the River Ouse. Other large sites within the same locality are also threatened.

Neither the District Council or Haywards Heath Town Council has ever planned to extend the town in this direction. Consequently they have never planned for the level of infrastructure support needed for such a large northwards expansion of the town. Nor has there been any strategic environmental assessment of the implications. Given this, CPRE's position has been that the individual development threats must be considered collectively and that, in doing so, it will be self-evident that such large scale, unplanned, development is totally unsustainable.

Hurstpierpoint/Sayers Common: Three separate housing schemes in the area involving 358 new homes, in different stages of the planning application/appeal process, have been called in by the Secretary of State who is expected to decide on them in the next 3 - 4 months.

Mayfields Market Town: The would-be developers will have been heartened by the Inspector's decision to require Mid Sussex District Council to withdraw and re-write its District Plan. Their new town scheme depends on their being able to persuade the Planning Inspectorate examining MSDC's and Horsham DC's District Plans to require the two Councils to increase their housing targets under their plans from the levels proposed by the Councils to a sufficient level to justify a whole new town of 25,000 people.

Opposition to the developers' scheme continues to be widespread and vocal: Not only CPRE and local residents, who have developed a highly visible and active action group, LAMBS - www.lambs.org.uk, but also both local MPs, both District Councils and every parish council affected by the scheme is opposing it. CPRE secured a two page spread in the West Sussex County Times and the Mid Sussex Times in January setting out their reasons for opposing Mayfield's plan. This is a story with many chapters yet to be written.