West Sussex MPs Nick Herbert (Arundel & South Downs) and Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) blasted the Mayfield new town proposal when they appeared before the Planning Inspector in Horsham yesterday.

 

The MPs expressed their dismay that localism was being undermined by Mayfield Market Towns who were seeking to overturn council plans in order to build a new town of 10,000 houses between Henfield and Twineham.

 

Sir Nicholas and Mr Herbert were speaking on Tuesday (18 November) on the eighth day of the examination process at which the Planning Inspector is assessing the soundness of the local plan submitted by Horsham District Council.

 

The MPs made the unusual request to speak at the examination so that they could set out their concerns directly to the Inspector.

 

Mr Herbert opened by saying that he supported Horsham District Council's plan and opposed the Mayfield new town proposal which he said was strongly opposed by the local community.

 

The MP said that Parliament had clearly intended that decisions should be taken by local communities, as the Planning Minister had confirmed only last weekend, and that both Horsham and Mid-Sussex District Councils did not support the new town plan.  He pointed out that an earlier report commissioned by Horsham, Crawley and Mid Sussex District Councils had ruled out a new town in the proposed location as unsustainable.

 

He said: "What we have is a developer trying to upset local plans for their own commercial ends, simply because they want to build houses on a greenfield location which is opposed by everyone else.  If they succeeded they would undermine the localism which was promised to communities and which Parliament clearly intended, and delay the construction of much needed local housing in the councils' chosen locations."

 

Mr Herbert pointed out that the National Planning Policy Framework set out three roles of planning, with an environmental dimension featuring as well as economic and social factors, yet the Mayfield new town would be built on open countryside, effectively destroying local villages.

 

Mayfield had sought to suggest that Horsham should be required to have the new town in order to accommodate housing demand in neighbouring coastal authorities, and that the Council's plan was unsound because it did not identify sufficient sites for development.  However, Mr Herbert drew attention to the Government's new planning guidance, issued in March, which reiterated that the duty of councils to co-operate over housing numbers was not a duty to agree, and that local councils could pass the test of soundness where local planning authorities have not been able to identify sites or broad locations for growth in the last five years of their plan. 

 

The MP argued that the plan was unsustainable, involving construction on land prone to flooding and with inadequate infrastructure to support a development of 10,000 homes.  He said that the developers' suggestion that most residents would work within the new town was "nonsense" and that most would use cars to commute to work because the new town was not built on a railway line.

 

Mr Herbert strongly criticised the developer, saying that he “had never experienced behaviour of this kind in my constituency in the nine years I have been an MP”.  He said that Mayfield Market Towns had distributed 8,000 leaflets in North Horsham suggesting to residents that the new town was a viable alternative to development, and had sought to give local people the impression of inevitability about their proposal, when in fact they did not have sufficient landowners' permissions and the proposal was a "chimera".  

 

Sir Nicholas Soames MP said that he supported Horsham and Mid Sussex District Councils' plans and very strongly opposed the new town.  He said that the Mayfield proposals were neither supported by the local authorities nor by the community and therefore did not accord with Government policy for new towns.  The local parish councils, and an overwhelming number of local residents and landowners, were all against the proposals, and he had "received regular complaints about Mayfield’s bullying and misleading behaviour towards local people".

 

Sir Nicholas said: "These proposals undermine the long established plans for 5,000 new houses at Burgess Hill and the regeneration of the town centre, both of which are supported locally.  They fail all the tests of sustainable development on economic, social and environmental grounds."

 

The MPs have consistently opposed the Mayfield new town proposal and have raised their concerns in the House of Commons, with Ministers and directly with the developers.