Political comment: Fast-acting Horsham escapes impact of Labour planning reforms

Horsham’s new MP, John Milne, has praised Horsham District Council (HDC) for progressing their new Local Plan just in time to save the district from a huge jump in housing targets.

As announced by Angela Rayner in the Commons on July 30, Labour is introducing a new way to calculate local targets that could dramatically increase the total for Horsham District.

In HDC’s emerging Local Plan as approved by the new Liberal Democrat council last December, the target is 480 houses per year for five years, which is a slower pace to allow water supplies to catch up. But under Labour’s new method this would jump to a minimum 1,294 per year.

John Milne MP states that: “The planning system Labour has inherited from the Conservatives is a shambles. It doesn’t work either for residents or developers and it desperately needs reforming – but not this reform!

"Angela Rayner is simply magnifying the worst errors of the previous Conservative system. Using local house prices as the main way to set local housing need is a terrible mistake, targeting the South East with far higher housing targets. You’re going to end up with some wild results including here in Horsham, just as happened under the last Conservative government.

"Fortunately, according to the rules Horsham’s new Local Plan, passed by HDC in December 2023, should be allowed to progress as it is, having already been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. I have written to the Minister asking her to confirm this and I will provide updates.

"Nationally we need housing. But there’s nothing in Angela Rayner’s proposals to help win local consent, which is precisely what brought the previous system down. The new government’s target for Horsham is totally unachievable in the context of a long-standing lack of investment in water supplies.

"Horsham’s new Local Plan, if it is allowed to continue in its present form, means we can green light good developments and resist bad speculative ones, and keep development in balance with the environment.”