Mid Sussex councillor Jonathan Ash-Edwards has confirmed on his Facebook page that he and the Conservatives running the district council were calling for a halt to the building of thousands of new houses in the area.
The Mid Sussex District Plan 2014-2031, which was adopted in March 2018, proposed a total of 16,390 new houses should be built in the period, with the vast majority in or around Burgess Hill.
It would necessitate 876 being built per year until 2023/24, then 1,090 a year until 2031.
However a review had to be carried out within five years of the adoption of the plan, and Ash-Edwards says the results have now been published.
“It is now sensible to press the pause button given the significant issues which impact the council’s planning,” he says. “I am writing to the secretary of state, Michael Gove, calling for our housing targets to be resent to a level more consistent with our environmental and infrastructure constrains and liaising with our local MPs to make our case in Westminster.
“It is essential that the plan maximises the amount of brownfield and windfall development that can be counted, although brownfield sites are limited in Mid Sussex. The amount of unmet need from neighbouring councils that we are expected to take needs to be thoroughly scrutinised.
“Mid Sussex is a great place to live and we must keep it that way by balancing the need for new homes for local people needing to get on the housing ladder with protections for our environment and the critical improvements to our infrastructure that must always come alongside new development.”
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