Save Our Countryside

Nick Herbert welcomes decision to drop North Heath &  Adversane development

Contributed by Dean Smith
Friday, 26 February 2010

As a follow-up to yesterday's announcement, Arundel & South Downs MP Nick Herbert has welcomed the decision to
abandon proposals for a new town of 4,000 houses at North Heath and Adversane.
The greenfield site had been earmarked for housing in Horsham District Councilors Core Strategy consultation
document, drawn up in response to the Government’s demand for 13,000 new houses in the district by 2026.
The Council has also shelved plans to designate Pulborough as a potential strategic development
location in the period to 2026 and will look instead at other sites in the district.
The decision was announced by the Council on Wednesday (24 February) following a campaign organised by local
action group STAND - Stop the Adversane North Heath Development.
Mr Herbert submitted a formal objection to the proposals in October, saying that a new town would devastate the
countryside and fail to deal with the lack of affordable housing in the villages. 
And he warned that significant development in Pulborough should only be considered with the agreement of the Parish
Council.
The MP also declared his opposition to the plans in a meeting with the Chairman and Chief Executive of Horsham District
Council in December.
Local campaigner Andrew Swaffield said: STAND has been very lucky to have had fantastic support from local
residents in North Heath and Adversane as well as further afield.  With the strong support of our local MP Nick Herbert,
and a great deal of hard work from many dedicated volunteers we have managed to keep this issue at the forefront of
people's minds throughout.
We are delighted that Horsham District Council has decided to abandon Option 8 and that our beautiful
countryside will remain now for future generations to enjoy.
Nick Herbert commented: I'm very relieved for my constituents in North Heath, Pulborough and West
Chiltington that these plans have now been dropped.  The new town at North Heath and Adversane would have been
twice the size of Pulborough and larger than any other village in my constituency.  It would have destroyed a beautiful
area of countryside and failed to solve the lack of affordable housing in the villages.  So I'm delighted that
we've seen it off and I'd like to congratulate STAND for running a terrific campaign.
Mr Herbert confirmed that a Conservative government would scrap the regional housing targets and regional spatial
strategies that are driving plans to build more than 74,000 houses in West Sussex over the next 20 years.

STAND is delighted to say that Horsham District Council have today released this press release to announce that they are not proceeding with the Adversane/ North Heath option!
 

Date:      24 February 2010                                               

Leading Change in Partnership to 2026 and Beyond:

Update on the Core Strategy Review 

IN AUTUMN last year, Horsham District Council invited comments on the Core Strategy Review Consultation document from people who had an interest in the District’s future. It set out some of the key issues in planning the future of the District and put forward, for consultation, nine potential options for how the development requirements could be met. 

Around 2400 comments were received on the issues raised in the document from a mixture of individuals and organisations. Over 1,500 of these related to the potential strategic development site options.

The Council has now reviewed and considered carefully all the comments received, as well as preparing further technical work to assist and inform the preparation of the proposed Preferred Strategy document, to be published in the summer, for further consultation.

As part of this process of consultation and technical work, it has been decided that some of the development site options should be excluded from further investigations because their locations meant it would be harder to create cohesive communities with sufficient services to meet the needs of future residents.

Instead, attention will be focussed on a ‘short list’ of the site options to ascertain from the further work whether they are appropriate and deliverable for inclusion in the preferred strategy. Of the nine original site options, the Council will not now proceed with further work on sites Faygate, Chesworth Farm (South Horsham), Adversane/North Heath and Pulborough as potential strategic development locations in the period to 2026. It will now focus its attention on sites West of Ifield, North Horsham, West of Southwater, and East of Billingshurst, with parallel feasibility work taking place on a possible new market town in the Gatwick Sub-Region, jointly with neighbouring authorities.

Cllr David Jenkins, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning at Horsham District Council, said:

“We indicated our commitment to a thorough public debate on the issues and options available to us at the early stages in the process. As a result of the response to the Consultation Document and our further assessments we have been able to refine our initial assessment process and indicate those options on which we now need to concentrate our attention. I am convinced that this is the appropriate way forward and, although not everyone will be happy with the position reached, it may help to allay the fears of some residents in those areas where we are not now looking to proceed with further studies.”

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The proposed development of 4000 homes in a new community at Adversane/North Heath (Option 8) is hugely opposed by the local population.

This is clearly demonstrated by the 554 objections which were sent in to Horsham District Council during the consultation period which ended in October 2009.
 The area around Adversane/North Heath is sparsely populated, because of its un spoilt and rural nature, compared to the other options which were put forward in the strategic plan. However, more objections were generated by Option 8 than for any other option except Billingshurst. It is worth noting that all of the objections for Option 8 (Adversane/North Heath) were individual and not of a standard format, which was not the case with all other areas.

We estimate there may not be more than one thousand homes surrounding and inside the proposed area, so for 554 people to object must be taken as a massive percentage of the affected population.

Our campaign group, which is called STAND (Stop The Adversane North Heath Development) has been sending out flyers, growing the email database and keeping the website (www.saveourcountryside.com) up to date to ensure that local people are kept informed.

We will not stop fighting this proposal until it has been dropped completely. We do not object to new houses for the sake of it - we object to the needless destruction of beautiful Sussex countryside when plenty of alternatives exist in established communities. Our campaign is not NIMBY'ism - you only have to visit this area to see that it would be criminal to destroy this environment with a community bigger than Billingshurst and Pulborough combined!

Our latest and sixth flyer, also includes a petition. There's an online version of this petition on our website. We now intend to obtain as many signatures as possible from the local population and will deliver it to Horsham District Council Strategic Planning in February before they make their decision about stage two.

Support our petition today by visiting www.saveourcountryside.com/petition or fill out the paper version and sign it and return it to Andrew Swaffield, Beverley, Gay Street Lane, North Heath, Pulborough, RH20 2HW (near corner of Gay Street Lane and Stall House Lane)

WELCOME TO THE “SAVE OUR COUNTRYSIDE” WEBSITE This site was originally constructed to keep the inhabitants of Adversane, North Heath and surrounding areas informed of the proposal to build a New Town in our countryside; detailed in Plan 8 of the Horsham District Local Development Framework Core Strategy Review. The website was also designed to serve as a vehicle to keep concerned parties informed with regular updates, provide useful links to planning documents and other relevant important sources of information and offer advice on the correct procedures to follow to object before 16th October 2009. Now that date has passed, we have to wait until HDC announces their decision in the Spring 2010.  We would welcome your views, advice and support – please tell all of your friends and neighbours about our site and act now before it is too late. If you have other suggestions and ideas for objecting please share them by emailing: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

http://www.westsussexliterarytrail.co.uk

DECISIVE ACTION TO SUPPORT OUR GOAL OF SCRAPPING PLAN 8 It’s no good complaining unless we can provide concrete evidence and compose a well-constructed argument as to why the building of such a major development in our countryside is not in the best interests of the area. For instance: a rare species sighted in the area needs to be accurately recorded. Wildlife and ecology can help form a very powerful argument in our cause to defeat Plan 8. If we have documented evidence of rare species of flora & fauna, we will have the basis of a good argument that will attract support from influential, external bodies. The easiest way to begin is to record your sightings with the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre via their downloadable species recorder tool. It is free and can be downloaded from: http://sxbrc.org.uk/projects/speciesrecorder/ Your recordings must be substantiated with accurate location information. Use the Ordnance Survey grid reference, which can be obtained from: http://www.multimap.com