"Is Local Plan a done deal?" ask Easebourne residents

Campaigners have welcomed changes to the South Downs Local Plan that will see Easebourne considered separately from neighbouring Midhurst.

However, residents opposed to further development in the village say significant concerns about proposed housing allocations remain unresolved ahead of a key planning meeting this week.

On Thursday 12 November, the South Downs National Park Authority's Planning Committee will consider its updated Local Plan, ahead of a final decision by the full National Park Authority in December.

The Local Plan will shape where homes and other development can take place across the National Park over the next 20 years. Allocation proposals could see 25 new houses built on greenfield land west of Budgenor Lodge, where proposed access arrangements remain contested, nine new homes on Easebourne Street and a 66-bed care home by the community hospital. However, campaigners and residents say they worry the SDNPA has not fully considered their concerns.

The Easebourne proposals attracted 953 responses to the SDNPA, many raising objections about traffic and environmental impacts. They represented nearly half of all submissions on site allocations across the South Downs National Park Local Plan.

Committee papers due to be considered on Thursday show the SDNPA has accepted criticism of the way Easebourne was presented in earlier versions of the Plan.

In response to representations received during consultation, officers say text and allocations relating to Easebourne have been moved from the "Primary Settlements" section to the "Other Settlements" section "to make it clear that it has been considered separately from Midhurst".

The report also states that factual inaccuracies have been corrected. However, while campaigners have welcomed that change, they argue it does not address wider concerns about the scale of development proposed for the village.

Working Together 4 Easebourne, which represents 218 residents, says it has spent months scrutinising planning documents and gathering transport, landscape and heritage evidence to challenge the scale of growth proposed. However, it believes the papers before Thursday's committee contain only a highly summarised account of its concerns.

It points to a line in the Regulation 22 Consultation statement, which states that despite objections relating to landscape, heritage, agricultural land, ecology, flood risk and access, officers are not proposing to reduce the number of homes allocated at Budgenor Lodge.

Instead, the document says, “additional wording and conditions have been added to address concerns.”

This has led WT4E to publish a statement to air its concern that the plan is already a “done deal” and that the entire consultation process was a “tick-box exercise.”

Easebourne Parish Council has also raised doubts about whether all of the changes discussed with SDNPA officers earlier this year have been fully reflected in the documents due before committee members.

Councillors have written to the SDNPA to ask for assurances that infrastructure assessments and population figures properly reflect Easebourne as a standalone settlement.

In correspondence with WT4E and shared with the Midhurst and Petworth Observer, SDNPA’s Head of Strategic Planning, Claire Tester, stated: 2Detailed consideration of each site and the representations made on them will be for the Inspector at examination."

However, the group argues that Planning Inspectorate guidance makes clear that planning authorities should address significant concerns before a Local Plan is submitted for examination, rather than relying on the inspection process to fix any problems.

Last month, Sion McGeever, the authority's chief executive, praised his planning team for being "calm under fire" as they dealt with "a lot of public interest and noise".

WT4E says those comments left some residents concerned that legitimate objections to further development in Easebourne were being dismissed as "noise", although the chief executive did not specifically refer to the village. The group argues this risks discouraging meaningful public participation in the planning process. It said: "Public consultation should be more than an opportunity to register objections. It should be a meaningful part of decision-making.

"The question is whether consultation and democratic scrutiny can still influence the Plan, or whether the outcome is effectively settled before Members vote."

The SDNPA has previously rejected suggestions that objections are being overlooked. In a statement, the authority said it was "aware of the strength of feeling and the technical views that have been presented by WT4E" and stressed that all representations would be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate and considered as part of the independent examination of the Local Plan.

Committee papers also state that concerns about Easebourne's treatment within the Plan have resulted in amendments, including the relocation of references to the village into a separate settlement section and the correction of factual inaccuracies.

The Planning Committee will consider the updated Local Plan on Thursday before it goes to the full National Park Authority in December. If approved, it will then be examined by an independent Planning Inspector, who will assess whether the Plan and its proposed allocations comply with planning law and national policy.