Site Information:

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• Horsham District Council

• 475 homes

• 32 hectares (80 acres)

• New public open spaces and a children’s play areas including a MUGA (multi use games area)

• New relief road to help bypass the village centre

• Land for a new primary school, land to accommodate an extension to the existing doctor’s surgery and land for a new dentist’s surgery and creche

• 27.4% affordable housing (130 units) and a financial contribution for local projects in the village

 

Main Planning Issues:

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• Landscape/topography

• Highways (new relief road connecting two ‘A’ roads)

• 5-year housing land supply

• Flooding in the village

• Foul water drainage (offsite 1.6km connection to WWTW)

• Archaeology (adjacent to Roman road)

 

Reside promoted about 32 hectares (80 acres) of land for mainly residential development.

An outline application was submitted in April 2013 to Horsham District Council and a resolution to grant planning for 475 homes was achieved in August 2013. The consent was finally issued in March 2014.

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Reside controlled the ‘lion’s’ share of the site (42%, 195 units) and worked in consortium to deliver the site with two Plc partners.

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The consortium decided to appeal the initial application for 550 units and used Martin Kingston (no.1 rated planning QC in the country at that time) to run this for us. By agreeing to reduce housing numbers by 75 units and focusing on a fully landscape led approach permission was achieved without the need to run the appeal.

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We dealt with senior officers at the district council together with the Chief Executive. Politically, we had significant involvement with the district councillors and the parish council. The latter were vehemently opposed to the application, albeit they were convinced to continue to engage with the proposed scheme to ensure there was local input and to help shape the form of development and their preferred community benefits. Consultation also included engagement with the local MP.

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Reside’s share of the site was sold to Persimmon in 2015.