Mid Sussex’s rural character is in ‘grave peril’ after a ‘dark day’ for the district saw an increase in housing targets for the area.
Mid Sussex District Council originally proposed 800 homes a year in its local plan, which sets out where and how many homes will be built up to 2031.
Jonathan Bore, a Government appointed planning inspector, has been scrutinising the plan during a series of examination hearings over the last few months and recommended the figure be increased to 1,026 homes per annum in his interim findings.
The article quotes Michael Brown, Mid Sussex’s representative from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), who argued that the district’s rural character is in ‘grave peril’ and the only way the council could meet the ‘ridiculous’ new target would be to approve developments in ‘wholly inappropriate locations’. He said: “This is a dark day for Mid Sussex and for the countryside that makes it such a special place to live and visit.”
He suggested that Mid Sussex would fall behind its inflated new target, with the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty ‘once again at serious risk’.
Kia Trainor, Chair of CPRE Sussex, said: “Mid Sussex has been asked to hike up its housing target to close an affordability gap and meet the unmet housing demand for people living in Crawley. You have to ask if it is right for rural districts in Sussex to take the houses which urban areas cannot provide? Will allocating swathes of countryside in Mid Sussex for development fix our broken housing market?”