In July 2024, Horsham District Council submitted its draft Local Plan for independent examination. Following the appointment of the government’s Local Plan Inspector, Mr Luke Fleming, a ‘Matters, Issues and Questions’ document regarding the Plan has now been published.
This document sets out the subjects about which the Inspector would like to better understand in his examination of the plan. He has invited individuals, parishes and stakeholders who submitted formal comments on the plan earlier this year to provide responses to these questions should they wish.
The Inspector has also set out his timetable for the examination hearings. These are scheduled to take place in the weeks commencing 9 and 16 of December 2024 and the 13 and 20 of January 2025.
Horsham District Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Infrastructure Cllr Ruth Fletcher stated:
I very much welcome the receipt of these questions from the Planning Inspector, which mark the next stages of the examination of the Council’s Local Plan. It is very important to us that we have a sound local plan in place, and the Local Plan Examination is a vital step in ensuring that this is the case.
If the Local Plan is found by the Inspector to meet the required tests of ‘soundness’ set out in national policy, having a local plan in place will mean, that we are in a stronger position to control the development that does take place in our District.
Our draft plan includes policies which seek to set a realistic level of housing development. This will help us to successfully defend speculative applications which result in piecemeal development that does not deliver the local infrastructure facilities we need to support that development.
Our housing allocation policies in the Plan set out clear expectations on the infrastructure needed to support the new housing. We are also proposing higher targets for affordable housing, as so many people in our District struggle to access truly affordable homes.
Whilst I recognise that there is always concern when new housing is proposed, our policies in the new Plan also set much tougher environmental standards than those set out in our current Local Plan. This means that the development that does come forward will deliver biodiversity net gain and be built to very high standards of carbon efficiency.
The Council will be drafting responses to the Matters Issues and Questions document in the next few weeks. They will be made available to view on the Council’s website along with other responses submitted by other parties.
More information about the Local Plan examination, including any responses that are submitted to the Inspector’s questions will be published on our website.