Horsham housing developments ‘will put unsustainable pressure on infrastructure’

Letter from: Councillor John Milne (Lib Dem), Roffey North
A housing development under constructionA housing development under construction
A housing development under construction

An urgent appeal by Horsham District Council to reduce our housing target in the light of the Covid-19 outbreak has just been refused once again.

We continue to hurtle towards a deadline in November, when we have to approve enough new giant estates to meet a likely target of 1,400 new houses every single year.

Almost no one thinks this is credible – from any party.

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Yet Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, has ignored all pleas to think again from his fellow Conservatives in local government as well Jeremy Quin, Horsham’s Conservative MP.

Yes, we need more affordable houses. But the government’s developer-led planning process leaves local councils with little ability to decide what actually gets built.

The government’s only response has been to water down the definition of ‘affordable’ until it’s meaningless.

The scale of this new development will put unsustainable pressure on infrastructure.

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The sad fact is we can’t even staff the health centres we have today, let alone enough for 50,000 more people.

Our national housing market has been broken for a long time.

But building the wrong houses in the wrong places can only make it worse.