The Council is only now about to discuss a new timetable for re-presentation of a revised plan for public examination in the latter part of 2015 with the aim of having it adopted early in 2016.
Mid Sussex looks likely to be at the back of the queue of public authorities adopting a new Local Plan. Meanwhile, the District struggles on with an out-of-date Plan and an outdated housing target that it is woefully short of achieving. In consequence – and for the foreseeable future – the District has substantially lost control of its ability, and abnegated its responsibility, to plan development within the District on a sensible strategic basis, or to justify refusing permission for most speculative greenfield developer planning applications. The default planning regime imposed on the District by the National Planning Performance Framework allows the Council precious little leeway to turn speculative developers away.
That said, Mid Sussex District Council has rejected two significant applications on unsustainable greenfield sites to which CPRE submitted objections: one for 210 houses at Penland Farm on the north side of Haywards Heath, and the other for 97 houses behind London Road in Hassocks. In both cases local action groups did a sterling job of highlighting why these developments would be inappropriate. Both decisions may well be appealed. We also await decisions by the Department of Communities & Local Government that has called in for determination 3 separate planning applications around Hurstpierpoint that, if all allowed, would substantially alter the character of that special community.
Of the 6 planning applications within Mid Sussex on which CPRE has made submissions this year, 5 have been decided in line with our submissions, and one decision is pending. We like to think that our input has helped to influence at least some of those decisions.
We are currently considering the implications of a recent planning appeal decision in which Inspector has overturned the Council’s refusal of permission for a housing development within the boundaries of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at Handcross. The decision appears at first sight to undermine the NPPF principle that AONBs are entitled to “the highest level of protection” and that development there should only be permitted in exceptional circumstances, by deciding that some land within a statutorily designated AONB is less worthy of protection than other parts.
Lastly we record with some pleasure that the first of 20 neighbourhood plans being developed in Mid Sussex has passed its public examination. The Cuckfield Parish Neighbourhood Plan will shortly go forward to a local referendum and, hopefully, to adoption. Local residents, who took early control of the development of and consultation on their plan deserve congratulations for having thoughtfully and successfully worked their way through the complex formalities of the process. Meanwhile Haywards Heath Town Council is considering the results of the public consultation on their proposed town plan on which we reported in March. F
or latest developments involving the possibility of a second runway at Gatwick Airport, hydrocarbon flow testing (note: not fracking) at Balcombe, and the threat of new “Mayfields Market Town” around Wineham, please refer to the appropriate page on our website.
Michael Brown
May 26th 2014