Arun council writes letter to Michael Gove about mandatory housebuilding targets and overdevelopment

The letter outlined the council’s issues with National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), mainly its want for mandatory building housing targets to be abolished by amending the proposed Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords.

Future housing targets, the council says, should be realistic and focused on local needs, not “double the number of houses we historically have been able to build per annum in Arun District”.

They also wanted the focus to be on social and affordable housing to accommodate a ‘low wage economy’.

Natural obstacles to planning were also a concern, stating: “Constraints in The Arun District loom large with the fairly recently formed South Downs’ National Park to the north concentrating development in our district and to the south we have The English Channel!

“Furthermore, the coastal plain is low-lying and increasingly liable to flooding, given sea level rises.”

The council said this was leading to increasing destruction of character in rural Sussex, lost of ‘productive and versatile’ agricultural land and increasingly dense and concentrated urban areas in places that can be developed.

It added erosion of green spaces and overburdening of an ‘outdated and failing’ sewage system would impact Arun’s tourism industry, hurting its economy.

Head of the Planning Committee Martin Lury (LDem, Bersted) singed the letter, along with the Labour, Green, Independent and Liberal Democrat Leaders.

The letter was also written in response to comments by the Secretary of State for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities, the Rt Hon Michael Gove, in Westminster about the planning system ‘not working as it should’, and that council’s with ‘genuine constraints’ would need to build less homes.

Previously, members’ concerns have been about overdevelopment in Arun and feeling forced to approve planning applications to meet mandatory housing targets, as well as developers planning by appeal – where developers appeal a decision to the national planning inspectorate and a council’s decision is overruled.

Members have also accused the national government of letting developers skirt section 106 payments and avoid following through on approved planning applications, leading to greater housing shortfalls.