Felt the need to quote from Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi' at yesterday's planning meeting (at 1h 43m) in connection with another car park in Billingshurst town centre. Sadly, pursuit of mammon triumphed yet again :(
As mentioned in the previous blog, the Town and Country Planning Association have drawn up 11 Healthy Homes and Places Principles, which are that:
All new homes;
1. must be safe in relation to the risk of fire.
2. must have, as a minimum, the liveable space required to meet the needs of people over their whole lifetimes, including adequate internal and external storage space.
3. must provide access to natural light in all main living areas and bedrooms.
4. must be designed to be inclusive, accessible, and adaptable to suit the needs of all, including the designed surroundings.
5. should be built within places that prioritise and provide access to sustainable transport and walkable services, including green infrastructure and play space.
6. must secure radical reductions in carbon emissions in line with the provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008.
7. must demonstrate how they will be resilient to a changing climate over their full lifetime.
8. must be built to design out crime and be secure.
9. must be free from unacceptable and intrusive noise and light pollution.
10. must not contribute to unsafe or illegal levels of indoor or ambient air pollution and must be built to minimise, and where possible eliminate, the harmful impacts of air pollution on human health and the environment.
11. must be designed to provide year-round thermal comfort for inhabitants.
None of which seems to be an unreasonable expectation in the 21st century, so we will have to see how many of our colleagues agree with us at full council on 9th Feb..
Given the recent changes, it feels a bit like starting at a new school this week, with several 'new boys' (Lib Dems in the NE Horsham wards of Forest and Roffey South) and a new 'headmaster'!
Some of the 'classes' have changed too, to reflect the new cabinet posts. As well as us both being on Planning South committee, Bob stays on Scrutiny, and Mike on Licensing. With regard to Policy Development Advisory Groups (PDAG)s, we are both on the new Environment and Rural Affairs PDAG; Bob stays on the Leisure and Culture PDAG, while Mike remains on Waste & Recycling and Finance, but also joins the Planning PDAG, having shadowed it for a while.
The problems remain though: we should find more about the financial situation this week, and the water neutrality issue remains a potentially useful delay to the local plan review. Mike was particularly taken by the recent blog post by Emily O'Brien of Lewes DC regarding the TCPA's Healthy Homes initiative, and will be looking further into its relevance to Horsham DC's current housing difficulties.
Yes this is a press release from a Tory council, but it does indicate a willingness to challenge central government's 'build, build, build at any cost' approach to housing, which has to be a welcome start on a long (and probably winding) road to a truly sustainable future.
Councillor Jonathan Chowen, the newly elected Leader of Horsham District Council, pledges a further £1million for climate mitigation and puts the environment and a revised Local Plan at the heart of the Council’s new vision. |
“Our Plan – Our Vision – Our District”
On Friday 3rd December 2021 Councillor Jonathan Chowen (Con, Cowfold, Shermanbury and West Grinstead) was unanimously elected as the new leader of Horsham District Council.
Commenting on his election, Councillor Chowen said:
“It is an honour and a privilege and I am delighted to have been elected as Leader of the Council. I am looking forward to tackling the challenges facing our District and the priorities of our residents.
“Our District is consistently recognised as one of the best places to live in England and only last week Horsham was quoted in the top twenty.
“I want to protect and enhance Horsham town, our historic villages and beautiful countryside - not build all over it with imposed housing numbers that ignore the needs of our residents.” On the paused ‘Local Plan’ review Councillor Chowen added:
“The existing draft Plan necessarily met the targets set by Government through large scale house building on greenfield sites. Recent events have made this Plan undeliverable. “Natural England’s position statement on water neutrality pauses all development in the District until a plan can be devised to mitigate the impact of Southern Water abstracting ground water near Pulborough to supply our needs. Our consultants have already determined that there are no feasible options for the local authority to achieve 100% water neutrality on its own. This is a wider problem which will require Government assistance and funding.
“The enforced pause of development means that we will have to reset our housing numbers because the current Government targets are clearly no longer achievable in this Plan period. Michael Gove has also signalled that he plans to re-visit outdated assumptions in the standard methodology for calculating housing numbers.
“Large scale housing developments will be much more problematic and not feasible until there is substantial investment in large scale mitigating infrastructure, which could take years.
“Therefore the need of large scale strategic sites such as those proposed at Adversane, Mayfield, Rookwood and Buck Barn, or the 1200 houses a year target, now looks very unlikely.
“Using our current plan as a starting point, we will work very closely with the local communities, and the Parish and Neighbourhood Councils. Our focus will be to address their local housing needs, aspirations and priorities. We must ensure that the housing we do deliver is high quality, eco-friendly in design and we must prioritise brownfield sites where possible.
“Also, we will need to consider the real world impact of planning delays to businesses and individuals, its social impact on investment, affordable homes, schools and recovery from the pandemic.
“We have to let our communities live, grow, thrive and evolve, otherwise they become moribund and unsustainable. We need the energy and enthusiasm of children and young people and the experience and wisdom of those in their later years. This will help to build diverse and sustainable communities.
“We also need thriving businesses, a strong rural economy, more home-working and encouragement for our young people to live and work in the District. This will help to preserve and enhance our way of life, culture, heritage, our environment and its wildlife.
“That is why the Council will be making a substantial further investment of £1million in our environment, delivering climate change initiatives and achieving carbon neutrality.
“My team and Horsham District Council are committed and determined to meet the challenges that we face, on behalf of our residents and the generations to come.” |
Following his recent election as head of the HDC Conservative councillor group, Cllr Jonathan Chowen (Cowfold, Shermanbury and West Grinstead) is likely to be elected as Leader of Horsham DC next Friday. Cllr Chowen will replace Cllr Clarke, who tendered his resignation in mid-November.
As Cllr Chowen previously resigned as Deputy Leader, following disagreements with housing allocations in the local plan, and was a key figure in the Wilder Horsham District project, are we about to see a greener policy approach from HDC?
Rest assured that Bob & I will continue to push for green policies, rather than blue-green!
You'll be relieved to know that I'm not going to add to the massive pile of analyses, but instead link to this clear summary from Dr Martin Meadows via Transition Town Lewes.
To conclude, I'll just re-quote (with my bold):
“It [COP26] has failed. We’ve done it at least 26 times and climate change has not stopped. It’s happening already as we speak. But we have to carry on. We’ll hope we do it again next year in Egypt and do it better next time. Pressure from the outside [of COP] is incredibly important and it has to continue.” (Professor Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development and Professor at the Independent University Bangladesh; advisor to the Group of Least Developed Countries, interviewed on Channel 4 News, 13 November 2021.)
At yesterday's climate march I was humbled to be asked to say a few words:
My message to the CoP 26 delegates is simple: the clue's in the name - Conference of the Parties. You are in Glasgow because you are party to the Paris agreement. We, the people, will do our bit, but need you, the national representatives, to provide the international framework to ensure that together we can succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
As many now realise to their cost, a 1.2 degree rise is significant – beyond 1.5 degrees must not be an option!
