Call for a halt on housing developments in Chichester district

Measures proposed by Secretary of State Michael Gove as part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, aim to put communities ‘at the heart of the planning system’ and make housing targets advisory instead of mandatory.

While welcoming the news, Lib Dem leader Adrian Moss called on Mr Gove to go further and allow planning appeals and all developments which were still at the planning stage to be put on hold during a consultation on the new measures.

In his letter, Mr Moss said: “To enable planning applications and appeals to go ahead now whilst the consultation is under way would be undemocratic and fails to support your stated aims of ‘community control’.”

For years, planning authorities up and down the country have warned the powers-that-be that they simply could not fulfil their housing targets.

The Chichester district was expected to build 638 homes a year from 2021 to 2039 – a figure the council said was not achievable.

A spokesman for the council said they would be ‘keeping a close eye’ on the situation.

Leader Eileen Lintill added: “We have been lobbying the Government for years now regarding the challenges that our area faces and so it is really positive that they have listened.

“We recognise that until these changes are implemented, we must continue to work with the current National Planning Policy Framework and so we look forward to seeing the detail of the consultation on the proposed policy changes as soon as possible.

“We will be continuing to keep a close eye on government updates and developments.”

Sarah Sharp, of the Green & Independent Alliance, urged caution and ‘the need for continued vigilance’ to ensure the measures were ‘swiftly converted into law’.

She said: “For many years the Planning Inspectorate has been delivering decisions at odds with residents’ views and local knowledge, so it is good news that the balance is going to be tipped our way.

“But it is certainly too early to relax and put our feet up.

“It beggars belief that local communities weren’t always ‘at the heart of the planning system’.

“This is where we should have been all along.

“Hopefully now we can at long last start to unshackle ourselves from the demands of central government and national house-builders concreting over much of the precious south coast.”

As well as housing targets, Mr Gove’s measures include ending the need for councils to have a five-year supply of housing land – as long as their Local Plans are up-to-date.

Those whose Local Plans are at ‘an advanced stage of preparation’ will only have to have a four-year supply and will have two years to review and revise their Plans against the government’s proposed changes.

Mrs Lintill said: “While the government has yet to set out what it considers to be ‘an advanced stage of preparation’ it appears that those areas that are at this stage will be afforded much greater protection.”

Mr Moss described the district as ‘reeling under the onslaught of speculative planning applications along the A259, around Chichester, in the Manhood Peninsula and in the north of the district’.

He called for ‘greater clarity’ on the new measures, adding: “Government statements contain attention-grabbing headlines with some fine words and aspirations. But so much damage has already been done.

“Even now, we only have a promise of ‘consultation’. We need to see real, tangible changes – and quickly.

“We need these headlines to be translated into new laws that will provide our communities and our ecology with the protection they deserve.”