HDC APPROVES DRAFT DISTRICT LOCAL PLAN 2023-2040

Councillors Colette Blackburn, Mike Wood, Alex Jeffery and Peter van der Borgh during their election campaign in May 2023. Giving residents confidence that they oppose the planned development only to betray their promises of support just 7 months later. All voted in support of the HDC local plan for at least 1000 homes to be built in Southwater.

At the Extraordinary Horsham District Council meeting held on Monday 11 December, the Lib Dem controlled Council voted strongly in favour of the Draft Local Plan which was published late on Friday 1 December. Not good news, in fact the worst news for the village.

At the hearing ,which lasted for almost 5 hours, a number of Councillors asked why the plan was being put out before the imminent release of the detail of the government changes to national planning policy ( the NPPF – National Planning Policy Framework). In particular, anticipated changes in relation to the location of new housing and ancilliary development and changes to protect productive agricultural land against development, both highly pertinent to our district Plan. Ironically, our Parish Council when it approached HDC asking whether in view of the upcoming changes to proceed with updating the Southwater Neighbourhood plan was told to await the government changes to the NPPF. But HDC it appears decided that it was another rule for them and they proceeded regardless with approval of the District plan .

And guess what, yesterday (12 December) details of the government changes emerged – changes which could have huge implications for the location and scale of development in our district and in particular in Southwater and which could lead to substantial scaling down of government housing targets for the district, give significant protection against development on green spaces and agricultural land. Further detail is awaited but one has to seriously question why the Council was not prepared to wait, as they told our Parish council to do, for this detail to emerge.

But did our Councillors support us?

Very disappointingly all four of our recently elected Southwater District Councillors, who canvassed in the run up to the elections on the promise “to protect our countryside” and to “save our biodiverse green spaces” and only one of whom resides in the village/parish, spoke passionately about what a good plan it was and voted in favour of the plan. The same four Councillors who stood with SRS supporters for a photo opportunity in front of Beeson House, see photo These Councillors all know how strongly opposed the village is to further development in and around the village, or should have done if they had bothered to sound views in the village, and they also know that they could very easily have reflected the sentiments of the village by opposing the plan (without any risk to them or to their party that this would have affected the final result) or they could even have abstained from voting.

But no, they did not oppose or abstain. They chose instead to give their full support to the plan. Villagers might be excused for thinking this showed a very considerable degree of arrogance from our councillors, recently elected and largely non-resident, and entirely unaffected by the huge further development they intend, against the wishes of the majority of residents, to impose on the village. We have all learned a lesson, and a painful one, for the future when it comes to dealing with our elected District Councillors.

What next?

The plan remains a draft plan and can be commented on by the public during a six week consultation process which will start in mid-January. It is vital that as many residents as possible submit their views in this process as they did in the successful challenge to the Berkeley Homes 1500 homes application which attracted over 1300 objections. Following the consultation the plan will be reviewed by a government inspector at hearings at which the real views of the village, rather than those of our Councillors, can be put.

SRS will be closely involved in the consultation process and the inspector hearings and will keep residents informed on this website and on social media on how they can also participate and make their views known so watch this space!

In the meantime a very happy Christmas and good wishes for 2024 to all in the village and Parish.

HDC Draft District Local Plan 2023-2040 - INACTION IS NOT AN OPTION

The much awaited draft updated Horsham District Local Plan has now been published. It addresses housing and related needs across the whole district and is a very lengthy document which can be accessed via the following link:

Horsham District Local Plan Regulation 19 December 2023

Southwater is one of three key strategic sites identified in the draft District Plan as targets for large scale development, along with land west of Ifield and Billingshurst.

Other sites around the district are identified for much smaller scale developments. The plan is a massive document running to hundreds of pages and addresses many areas which will impact on current and future residents of the district and it will be analysed in greater detail by SRS and other local groups however there are two immediate issues which Southwater residents should focus on.

1. Extension of the Southwater village Built Up Area Boundary (BUAB) and proposed new homes allocation

In relation to Southwater, the draft plan (pages 163-167 and p.194) very substantially extends the current Southwater BUAB to include land to the west and north of the Old Worthing Road right up to the A24 at Hop Oast. The proposed new boundary very closely (but not exactly) mirrors the boundary of the site proposed by Berkeley Homes in their application in October 2022 which they subsequently withdrew earlier this year. The draft plan proposes "at least 1000 homes” to be phased over the plan period (to 2040) and beyond. The plan includes new roads, allocation of land for a Secondary school, industrial, retail and community facilities and sees this as an opportunity to "create a sustainable new community adjacent to and integrated with Southwater.” In other words, the two-centre village residents were so concerned to avoid when the Southwater Neighbourhood Plan was developed and approved.

The proposed site covers almost 290 acres of productive and much needed farmland owned by Christs Hospital and the Berkshire-based Aubrey Fletcher family. The developer who is most likely to be chosen is Berkeley Homes which has an option arrangement with the two landowners on the proposed site which they considered in their withdrawn application could support 1500 new homes. The significant extension of the Southwater BUAB proposed in the draft raises a very real risk that “ at least 1000” homes could end up being nearer 1500 homes.

The crucial significance of the extension of the BUAB is that once extended, all land within it carries a presumption in favour of the developer that the land can be developed, and it severely erodes the grounds for local residents/third parties objecting to proposed development within the BUAB. Put bluntly, it is a green light for developers and a red light for parties opposing development.

2. Water Neutrality

Very worryingly, the draft plan (pages 48-51) significantly favours the developers and disadvantages local residents by adopting as part of the plan the total fiction that new build homes will restrict their residents daily water use per person to 85 litres. This issue is critical to the short, medium and long term security of water supply across our district and adjacent districts from Crawley through to Chichester which form the Sussex North Water Resource zone (SNWRZ). This zone is the only water supply zone in the UK which is at serious risk of supply exhaustion and which, for compelling reasons, is subject to water neutrality.

Please take the time to read our paper on Water Neutrality - Fiction and facts - on the website. This was provided some time ago to both HDC and Natural England and neither have contested the content or conclusions.

HDC is already approving development applications which it knows are not water neutral, and has stated openly that it will not monitor water use in new builds (or retro-fitted) properties nor will it be involved in any enforcement where properties do not meet the neutrality requirements. Should local residents be worried about this? Most certainly they should, it might seem a small issue in the context of the odd small development of a few properties but in the context of the scale of the development HDC now seeks to impose on the district, and on Southwater in particular, it is hugely significant.

Why is the inclusion of the absurd 85 Litres per person daily water consumption so important and so damaging? Simply because, as HDC is fully aware, it is based entirely on aspirational and theoretical calculation of daily water consumption which completely ignore actual readily available water use data, including data from a 2022 pilot study carried out on behalf of HDC on properties in Crawley which were retrofitted for the study with water flow restriction devices. This pilot survey revealed daily water use just short of double the figure now adopted by HDC in the draft plan. Yes, it is absolutely proper that residents should be encouraged to use water wisely, however the primary purpose of putting the 85 litres target in the draft plan is very clear - it is to make it easier for developers to “demonstrate” water neutrality and for HDC to approve applications for developments which HDC and the developers know will be far from water neutral and which will seriously and potentially fatally threaten future water supply in the SNWRZ. And HDC will not monitor water use nor enforce the neutrality requirement because they know that will expose the underlying fallacy of the target.

SRS has informally surveyed a number of local households in and around the village, including on the Broadacres site where properties are fitted with flow restriction devices (many of which, it appears, may already have been removed, entirely legitimately) which reveals actual water use very significantly higher that the proposed 85 litres figure. We strongly recommend residents if they have not already done so to check the examples in the Water Neutrality article on our website to see what 85 litres per person per day means in practice. And check your own daily consumption which is helpfully included in our Southern Water twice-yearly bills.

Next steps and what you can do

The draft plan will be considered by the HDC Cabinet and Council at public meetings at the HDC office on Monday 11 December (commencing at 5 pm). The recommendation from HDC planning to the Cabinet and the Council is to adopt the plan.

The four newly elected Southwater Councillors will be part of the voting process. Residents should not hesitate to contact them (it is what put themselves up for) in advance of the vote on 11 December to ask for their views on the draft plan;

Mike Wood: mike.wood@horsham.gov.uk

Peter Vanderborgh: peter.vanderborgh@horsham.gov.uk

Colette Blackburn: colette.blackburn@horsham.gov.uk

Alex Jeffery: alex.jeffery@horsham.gov.uk

The plan will then be put out for public consultation for 6 weeks in the New Year at which point it will be very important that those Southwater residents who are not happy with what is proposed for the future of their village make their views known by responding on the HDC portal and to the Councillors who were elected in May this year to represent the village. In their pre-election canvassing flyers they promised "to protect our countryside” and to ”save our biodiverse green spaces” - the very 289 acres of agriculturally important countryside and green spaces which HDC is now proposing to concrete over with “at least 1000” new properties and ancillary buildings.

After the public consultation, the plan and all the objections and supports for the plan will be considered by a Government Inspector and there will a further opportunity at that stage to challenge the plan. SRS will be closely following the progress of the plan and putting in its submissions. We welcome engagement with local residents on any queries arising in relation to the process or the issues arising. SRS will also provide guidelines via the website on how to submit objections.

The most important thing to remember is that INACTION IS NOT AN OPTION. We need to make our voices and our objections heard in the plan finalisation process.

Do you want a secondary school in Southwater? It will come at the cost of more mass house building

The recent Lib Dems petition for a secondary school in Southwater is misleading - it starts from an unsupported premise that there are insufficient secondary school places in the district and very importantly does not tell us that the price of a school is a very significant increase in the number of new houses which will be imposed on the village.

Take a look at the survey launched by our local MP which at least focusses on schooling needs and raises the inevitable tradeoff of huge numbers of houses in return for a school.

See and complete MP Jeremy Quinn's survey here >

Save Rural Southwater raised this important concern with the Lib Dems back in September and has repeated it since. As the elected representatives of our village it is their duty and indeed it was their pre-election promise to protect our countryside and that is what the village expects to them to do.