Around 3,500 homes will be built on land known as the ‘Northern Arc’ just north of Burgess Hill now that Mid Sussex District Council has approved plans put forward by the government agency Homes England.
The 481-acre includes three schools, sports and leisure facilities, ‘health provision’ and better highway infrastructure as well as the housing, 30 per cent of which will be affordable.
If planning procedure goes to schedule, permission should be granted this summer and building will begin next year.
“We developed our plans following discussions with the local community as well as working closely with Mid Sussex District Council and West Sussex County Council to ensure that the supporting infrastructure will be delivered at the right time,” said Ken Glendinning, Head of Strategic Land with Homes England.
“This flagship scheme will provide existing and new residents with access to a mix of affordable and market priced homes to buy and rent alongside new community, education, leisure, health and employment facilities.”
Homes England began life in January 2018, replacing the Homes and Communities Agency, an executive, non-departmental body set up to ‘create successful communities by making more homes and business premises available to the residents and businesses who need them’. It also regulated social housing providers.
The new Homes England agency set out to deliver a more commercial approach and is different from its predecessor, it says, by playing a much bigger role in intervening in the market. Along with its aim to build 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade, its mantra is to ‘help more people in England to access better homes in the right places’.
The Northern Arc planning application can be seen on Mid Sussex District Council’s planning register under reference DM/18/5114.
