Fresh proposals are being put forward to build houses in a Horsham pub car park.

EI Group – formerly Enterprise Inns – is currently seeking planning permission from Horsham District Council to build four new homes at the Shelley Arms in Old Guildford Road, Broadbridge Heath.

Agents for the EI Group, Vista Planning, say in a statement to the council that a previous application for the new houses was withdrawn to deal with ‘water neutrality’ issues.

EI Group, part of the Stonegate pub chain, is the largest pub company in the UK with 4,500 sites. It wants to build two three-bedroom properties and two two-bed properties – comprising two pairs of semi-detached houses – on the Shelley Arms site.

The car park of the Shelley Arms pub in Broadbridge Heath where the pub chain EI Group proposes to build four new houses

placeholder image — The car park of the Shelley Arms pub in Broadbridge Heath where the pub chain EI Group proposes to build four new houses

Vista Planning say: “The proposed houses would be orientated to the east of the site with the rear gardens extending to the west, adjoining a reconfigured pub car park.

“Access to the new houses would be taken from Weston Avenue just to the south of its junction with Gratwick End. Two parking spaces are provided for each new dwelling.”

Meanwhile, the pub’s reconfigured parking area would provide 42 parking spaces with four of them allocated for disabled parking.

In their statement to the council, Vista Planning add: “The hospitality sector has been through a turbulent time since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the overall

hospitality sector seeing the biggest economic decline of all sectors during the pandemic.

"The company’s strong leadership saw their people supported throughout with regular communication; mental-health assistance, financial support, personal access to colleagues and senior team members as well as significant financial and business support for their publican partners.

"A loyal and stable workforce emerged from the pandemic to face further challenges with the economic downturn, rising energy costs and interest rates.Today, Stonegate’s performance remains market leading which in turn has enabled continued investment in their people, pubs and bars and in continuing to create jobs across the UK.”

It maintains that ‘water neutrality’ issues at the Shelley Arms car park site have been overcome by the pub chain’s consultant team working with social housing provider Raven Housing Trust to upgrade a number of residential properties within the Sussex North Water Resource Zone to mitigate water use.

No decisions have yet been made.