Housing - It's a numbers game - Take 3

Previous blogs on housing have outlined the reasons why HDC 'has' to plan for up to 1200 dwellings pa (920 minimum plus 'duty to cooperate') over the next 16 years in its forthcoming revised Local Plan.  This should be set against the latest Office for National Statistics prediction, made pre-Covid, of just under 700 dwellings pa over that period in Horsham District!   

It's likely that a decision on the exact plan to be put forward (with a definitive list of strategic, ie large, sites) - Regulation 19 - will be taken by June.  In the meantime, we can expect to receive a flood of communications on why site A, B or C is clearly unacceptable.  This is clearly going to give Bob & myself a few problems!  

Firstly, without secretarial support, it's just too time consuming to reply to all the e-mails we are receiving - nearly 200 this week, I've just counted them...  Nevertheless, we are both reading them all, although probably not to the end if they are obviously a form letter.  So, 'sorry' if you were expecting a crafted reply.

Secondly, for some of the reasons explained above and in earlier blogs, I agree that the number required by central government is absurd.  It was always absurd, although with the postulated 'mutant algorithm' requiring 1715pa it was risible, but that doesn't make the current requirement any more acceptable.  

So what's it to be?  

a) vote against a plan than contains absurd numbers with inherent poor consequences for the wellbeing of the district, accepting the risk of opening the floodgates for developer applications as the current Horsham District Planning Framework 2015 will be well past its review date?

or:

b) attempt to reduce the plan numbers to something that can rationally be justified on current predictions, with the intention of reviewing downwards further once the full impact of the current pandemic can be assessed and sense prevails in central government?

or:

c) vote for the plan with its absurd numbers, thus upsetting a good number of residents and treating some excellent countryside to a concrete and tarmac overcoat, with the hope of an early downward review once the absurdity of the numbers in the current economic environment is reflected in government actions?

We'd love to hear your views.