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In his letter in last week’s County Times, responding to mine from the previous week, John Milne MP misrepresented the points I made about the role of local authorities in the provision of social and affordable housing. It is not my notion, as John Milnes states, that ‘ councils can simply build what they like where they like.’ I said in my letter that councils had the opportunity to use Section 106 agreements to ensure that developers deliver in line with the council’s own policies.

There is nothing fantastical about this statement; in fact a couple of Lib Dem councils are quoted as examples of good practice in housing delivery by John Milne, one of these is Eastleigh Borough Council. We took a moment to review Eastleigh’s housing strategy as published on their website. It states, ‘to meet our objective of finding homes for people on the housing register, and for those looking for affordable housing, we use the planning process to secure affordable housing on qualifying sites in accordance with our policies.’ No doubt Kingston, which is also mentioned by John Milne, takes a similar approach, as do many local authorities across the country, where there is the political will. As I mentioned in my letter, Horsham Council is not one of those.

John Milne goes on to state that Horsham District Council cannot fund significant numbers of new homes for social rent without government support and describes the funding currently available from the government as a drop in the ocean. Our MP has clearly not kept up to date with the government announcements on funding of the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP), even though I gave the update in my letter. Rachel Reeves has increased the current round of funding by £3 billion to enable more affordable homes to be built with an emphasis on supporting social rent. It is envisaged that, on top of the funds already allocated for the current AHP funding round, it will deliver over 25,000 affordable homes, of which 50 per cent will be for social rent. Hardly a drop in the ocean, and further funding for the new round that begins in 2026 will be announced later this year.

John Milne claims that, the funding won’t be coming to Horsham because, ‘ in the Labour government’s eyes, our needs are not severe enough.’ This misrepresents the way that AHP funding is allocated; it is unlikely that the Labour government has made that assessment of an application from our District, if indeed one has ever been submitted.

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He also claims that, ‘ the Labour government is attempting the same solution as the Conservatives did before them.’ Nothing could be further from the truth, revision of the planning process and the significant boost in funding, with a specific emphasis on homes for social rent, is significantly different from the Conservatives’ approach. What does appear to be the same as the Conservatives’ approach is the Lib Dem’s inertia when it comes to the delivery of the social housing we need in Horsham. Perhaps rather than misrepresenting facts about the government’s approach, John Milne could look at changing his.

David Hide

Chair, Horsham Labour Party

Clarence Road Horsham

Political opinion/letter to the editor: Lib Dem inertia when it comes to the delivery of the social housing we need in Horsham