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Arun agreed up to 580 houses per annum to be built. |
Some of you may have seen the newspaper reports regarding
the recent debate on the Local Plan, we had to vote on whether to agree the
strategic option of providing 2000 houses Eastergate/Westergate and Barnham and
also 600 houses in Angermering.
If we don’t have a local plan in place then we are
vulnerable as a District for Planning by appeal, this is where a developer
would put in an application on a site to the Planning authority which is
rejected by local Councillors, if the Developer subsequently appeals to the
planning inspectorate in Bristol, the appeal can be allowed for the sole reason
that the planning authority did not have a local plan in place.
So this could get applications popping up all over the
place, on Greenfield sites like Horses Field and it would be planning anarchy,
also we wouldn’t get the windfalls of developer contributions to build new
roads or community buildings.
This situation has arisen because the previous Labour
government wanted to see more house building and designed this into the system;
the coalition government also wants more house building so has allowed the
system to continue. As a country we need
more houses, but this is not localism, it’s planning by duress.
So I voted for the
recommendation not because I wanted to or that I believe putting these houses
in these locations was desirable, I voted for it to stop planning by appeal and
I saw a vote for yes as the lesser of two evils and however I looked at the
conundrum I could not see a way out.
It was not an easy or popular decision, but we couldn’t wait
any longer in making a decision however unpalatable or unpopular as we have already had a number of applications approved on appeal.
Until next month,
Paul Dendle is Arundel Ward and Cabinet Member for the
Environment on Arun DC. He can be
contacted on email pauldendle@aol.com.
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