Horsham district 'now a developer's paradise' according to one Conservative councillor

The Plan, which guides development proposals in the district, was supposed to be put out to what is known as a Regulation 19 public consultation following meetings of the cabinet and full council in January.

It would then have gone to an independent planning inspector for its final examination.

Instead, both meetings were cancelled and a decision was made by a handful of Tory councillors to pause the Plan.

While a statement was published saying ‘it would not be appropriate’ to continue, given proposals from Michael Gove to look again at the high annual housing targets each area is expected to meet, a number of Tories have openly criticised the decision.

During a meeting of the full council, Toni Bradnum (Con, Nuthurst & Lower Beeding) said: “Within this council we have a few people who are power mad and those people think it’s more important to sit at the top table than they do to do the right thing.

“So here we are two years later and four leaders later and still no Plan.”

Lynn Lambert (Con, Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead) – whose name was credited to the statement of explanation – said she did not vote to delay the Plan and stood ‘fairly and squarely’ behind former leader Jonathan Chowen, who resigned when the delay was agreed.

Ms Lambert said the district was now ‘a developers’ paradise’, adding that the environment-based Local Plan ‘would have protected our wonderful district from speculative development’.

She said: “In the first five years of that Plan, only limited numbers of houses would have been built, with protection from speculative development and an agreed housing trajectory.”

A notice of motion was tabled by Mike Croker (Green, Bramber, Upper Beeding & Woodmancote) asking for reasons to be given to explain the delay and the decision not to bring the Plan to full council in January.

Mr Croker said: “Had the decision been made democratically at formal cabinet, where meetings are live-streamed and public questions may be asked, we would at least have had some ideas.

“Instead members and, more importantly, the public are being treated like the proverbial mushrooms – kept in the dark while being drip-fed on speculative reasons.”

Philip Circus, who took over from Mrs Bradnum as cabinet member for recycling & waste following Mr Chowen’s resignation, said the accusation that people were power hungry was ‘absolute garbage’.

He added: “We’ve had a statement from the Secretary of State saying ‘I’m changing the way we look at housing numbers, I’m going to have a more community based approach’.

“If we just rolled over and ignored it, then I can only say our electorate would look at us and would not understand.

“The reasons we have taken this decision are reasonable, they are measured, they’re substantial and they are what our electorate would expect us to do.”

The meeting was told that it was hoped that ‘a very similar Plan’ would be brought back to the council later this year, when hopefully Horsham would have the ‘best of both worlds’ – a reduced housing target and protection from unwanted development.

John Milne (Lib Dem, Roffey North) called the delay a ‘gamble played with Horsham’s future’ and said the risks of the delay were ‘much greater than any possible reward’.

Accusing the Tories of delaying because the Plan contained a number of unpopular developments , he predicted that – should the party still be in control of the council after May’s elections – they would ‘bring back exactly the same Plan’.

But leader Claire Vickers said she had ‘abolsutely no regret’ in suggesting the Plan be paused.

She added: “I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do.”