Battle erupts over plans for major new home-ware store at Sussex village business park

A planning application has been lodged with Horsham District Council for home, garden and leisure goods retailer The Range to open a store at Billingshurst Business Park.

But council officers are recommending that planners – who are due to decide the issue at a meeting on February 12 – should turn down the proposals.

However, business park owners – property developers Dunmoore – say that the new Range store would create much-needed jobs and growth to support increased housing targets.

And they say that the site ‘already has planning consent for the exact same building’ and point out that Billingshurst Parish Council and Horsham Council’s economic development team have no objections to the new store.

Council officers say, in a report to the council’s planning committee, that “the significant scale and very broad retail offer of the proposal would result in a significant adverse impact on the vitality and viability of Billingshurst town centre and would undermine the district’s retail hierarchy which promotes Horsham Town and the Broadbridge Heath Quadrant as the primary retail centre for the district.”

Dunmoore maintains that opening a new Range store at Billingshurst Business Park would create 80 new jobs within the next 12 months. A spokesperson said: “The Range has already committed to the site should planning permission be granted, via a binding lease agreement. In addition, the presence of The Range as an anchor tenant will provide the financing to install the enabling infrastructure required to complete the remaining employment units at the Business Park, generating even more new jobs.”

And, the spokesperson added: “It is apparent that officers are not prioritising the delivery of much-needed jobs and growth to the area. Horsham District Council has either consented or allocated over 65,000 sqm of new employment floorspace on sites close to Billingshurst over the last 10 years. With the exception of

Billingshurst Business Park, not one of these sites have progressed; and while Billingshurst Business Park will have created 205 jobs once this building is completed, the other sites combined will have generated no jobs at all.”

Dunmoore managing director Jeff Hobby said: “We really hope planning committee members will see the benefit of what we are trying to achieve with this application. By signing up The Range as an anchor tenant, not only can we immediately deliver 80 new jobs, but we will also secure the funding for the infrastructure needed to continue building the next phases of Billingshurst Business Park. Unfortunately, at the moment it’s not an either/or. One enables the other. It’s as simple as that.

“The officers’ main reason for refusal is the loss of ‘employment space jobs’, when on review we are on-target to deliver the originally consented 390 jobs; plus, with our flexible and efficient use of the site, we are able to accommodate a further 140 jobs, totalling 530 jobs. Given the lack of delivery of any of the district council’s identified employment sites, this is extraordinary.”

The Range, which operates more than 200 stores nationally, would be sited near Lidl if planning consent is granted.