Warnham Parish Council

Review of Horsham District Planning FrameworkPreferred Strategy

and topics for consultation response

The HDPF identifies potential sites for development in the District over the next 20 years. The sites are identified to meet housing need but provision is also made for increased employment in Horsham,

Consultation

The HDPF is at consultation stage and comments on the published documents can be submitted until 11 October. The documents are extensive: the Preferred Strategy is 122 pages, an Interim Sustainability Appraisal 288 pages and a Non-Technical Summary 13 pages.

Housing Numbers

The basis of the Strategy is the number of homes to be built per year over the next 20 years. This is assessed at 575, giving the need for sites to build 11,500 homes. The 2011 Census showed Horsham District had 54,900 households. The expansion planned is therefore significant – some 21% in households - or 27,500 extra people at 2011 household size. HDC’s original estimate of housing need was between 635 and 820 per year, so in some sense 575 is a low figure. There is however no explanation to support the 575 figure except the statement that:

  • 190 homes per year are needed to house the existing population (people living longer, children wanting separate homes etc.)
  • 460 homes per year would provide for the above plus population change ( an increase of 270)
  • 560 homes per year builds on the above and adds housing to support economic (employment) growth
  • 575 homes per year is the above plus support to the wider economy of the Gatwick Diamond.

The increase of 270 houses per year to accommodate incoming families appears to be one of the most questionable aspects of the Strategy and is presented without expansion or amplification. A change in this figure would make a dramatic change to the Strategy. The increase of 100 houses per year from 460 to 560 to support economic growth is again questionable. How much economic growth does Horsham need? How is 100 houses per year arrived at?

The 460 figure provides for attracted population. Additionally the increase from 560 to 575 provides for Gatwick Diamond generated growth. This appears to be double counting.

Affordable housing

There is much emphasis on building affordable houses and it is proposed, variously, that between 20% and 35% of developments shall be affordable. This could provide some 150 affordable houses per year or 3000 over the life of the Strategy. The current need for affordable housing in the District, as previously presented to the parish council, is about 1000 houses. How is the figure of 3000 arrived at? Is it to be assumed that there will be an influx of significant numbers from other areas seeking affordable housing provided by Horsham?

Housing Strategy

The evolved spatial strategy is to allocate the majority of the future housing to larger, strategic sites where it can be supported by infrastructure and development can be structured through master planning and development control. Additionally, some development shall be accommodated in medium sized villages to meet local, identified need.In the Strategy Warnham is classed as a MediumVillage. This will supersede the previous Category 2 designation, which precluded development outside the built-up area.

Strategic sites

The supporting Sustainability Appraisal evaluates eight strategic sites in some detail. The evaluation is in terms of their impacts and opportunities on: housing, education & skills, leisure & recreation, health, safety and crime, equalities and social inclusion, biodiversity, landscape, archaeology and heritage, environment, flooding & drainage, climate change, waste, economy, retail and, finally, transport. Traffic and transport are evaluation criteria but physical infrastructure in terms of roads, rail, water supply, drainage etc appear to be of lesser importance in the Strategy than might have been expected. Additional car ownership in the District is identified as creating a town centre parking problem rather than as resulting in additional traffic generation and potential congestion on the strategic and local roads around Horsham. Reference to potential impact on the road system refers to the M23/A23 corridor only – no mention of A24. It is not until page 46 that transport and access difficulties are raised. It seems a great failing in defining the Strategy that the capacity of the local infrastructure, in its many facets, has not been a primary input and only has a somewhat secondary consideration.

Evaluation of eight sites in the District leads to the Strategy as development in the following areas:

  • 2500 homes North of Horsham – north of the A264 between Langhurstwood Road and the Moorhead Roundabout (therail line to Crawley). This site is to the north of the current built area of Horsham and does not really encroach into the Horsham / Crawley gap.
  • 500 homes each at Billingshurst and Southwater. The Billingshurst development was approved on 20 August, (at 475 homes) so taking it out of consultation on the Strategy.
  • 500 homes inMedium Villages through Neighbourhood Plans.

The above is 4000 homes. There are additionally 6900 homes with permission or to be completed within the period, including the BBH development and Kilnwood Vale on the A264, plus 600 applications likely to be approved in the period prior to adoption of the HDPF, giving 11,500 homes in total. From where we are now, the additional homes to be planned in the Strategy period are 4600, an annual rate of 230 homes per year, rather than the headline rate of 575.

Locations evaluated and dropped after appraisal for various reasons are West of Ifield, Faygate, Chesworth Farm, Adversane, and an extension of Kilnwood Vale. There appears to be little consideration of brownfield sites within Horsham or elsewhere. No plans are included of the rejected sites.

The Preferred Strategy is presented as a single package. There are no alternative strategies or proposals to show how the Preferred Strategy may be varied in the light of revised estimates of the number of homes required. A reduction in homes required from 575 per year to 450 per year would eliminate the need for the North of Horsham site

Supporting infrastructure

The lack of consideration of the capacity of the supporting infrastructure in terms of road, rail, water, electricity, drainage etc to accommodate 11,500 extra homes appears to be a significant weakness of the Strategy. Under a heading of Infrastructure and facilities the only reference is toleisure offer and community facilities. Presumably the assumption is that whatever the shortfalls the developer or service supplier will provide additional capacity as part of the implementation plan. This may be reasonable considering piped or wired services but the additional loading on the road network deserves fuller consideration. Current peak period congestion on the A24 and A264 is evident daily and an increase of 20% in homes, and thereby cars and traffic demand, is likely to be dramatic in terms of highway congestion.

As part of the West of Horsham developments of 2,000 homes the A24 junctions are to be changed to traffic signal control and the A24 downgraded to 60mph. It is difficult to envisage the further improvements that will be required to accommodate another 4000 homes. This is in addition to the further industrialisation of the old Warnham Brickworks site.

North of Horsham

The North of Horsham site will have an immense impact on Warnham, mainly due to the significant increase in traffic on the congested arterial roads around Horsham. This is likely to result in increased travel times, delays at junctions and, specifically to Warnham, difficulties in leaving the village by car and joining the A24.

If the North of Horsham site is endorsed it will provide the opportunity for a new parkway station which would have benefits in alleviating the parking problems at Horsham and other stations and promoting a modal shift to public transport. If the North of Horsham site is adopted it must be wholly conditional that the parkway station proposal is an inviolate component of the masterplan. Without this there would be little benefit to the wider population to compensate for the dramatic step of expanding Horsham to the north of the current built boundary, over the A264 into open countryside.

There is a reference to the parkway station which would be a park-and-ride type facility including transport links to Horsham town and railway station. It is to be hoped that the North Horsham development will not be marketed on the basis of a new railway station but at a later stage down-graded to a P&R car park and a bus to Horsham station.

Village development

An element of the Strategy is for 500 homes, in total, to be built in villages such as Warnham. The driver for such development is mainly to provide affordable homes if shown to be required and to support other shortfalls in village amenities as identified through a Neighbourhood Plan. The downside may be that to provide affordable housing free-market housing will be required to finance the affordable homes, so promoting larger size developments. Alternatively, where developers cannot provide the required allocation of affordable houses in the larger developments there is scope to finance affordable housing in villages. This could reduce the scale of development in villages needed to provide affordable houses.

As far as Warnham is concerned it could be argued that with so much of the Strategy housing allocation to locations close to Horsham (and Warnham) the supporting allocation of 500 homes should be focussed on the remoter parts of the District. This would disperse development through the District and relieve the locality of further construction disruption and congestion on the local road network. As far as providing affordable housing to meet any need identified by Warnham residents, the availability of such housing at BBH and North Horsham may be a satisfactory compromise.

500 homes in villages over 20 years is 25 per year. This is a relatively small number (Wyvern Place is 36) and within the possible ranges of error in the assumptions inherent at arriving at the initial figure of 575 homes per year.

Proposed points on which to comment to HDC

  1. Lack of alternatives to the Preferred Strategy
  1. Lack of confidence in the need for 575 homes per year. Justification needed for the high numbers of inflow the District. Potential double counting in identifying the Gatwick Diamond effect as a separate entity.
  1. Opposition to breaching the A264 northern boundary to Horsham.
  1. Development of the North of Horsham site will have a significant impact on the surrounding road system, increasing congestion and exacerbating the tendency to use secondary and village roads as rat-runs. This will particularly disadvantage the parish of Warnham.
  1. Further investigations required into the feasibility of providing the increases in infrastructure capacity needed to support the planned developments, especially improvement to the A24 and A264.
  1. Lack of identification of brownfield sites in the District.
  1. Other than for affordable homes, question whether villages close to the large scale strategic sites should be identified for development.
  1. Inclusion of North Horsham in the Strategy must be wholly conditional on the construction of a new station with extensive parking provision.

11 September 2013 - Revision 2 following PC meeting on 10 Sept. 2013

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