Mid Sussex MP, Nicholas Soames, has tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons expressing the gravest concern over the Government’s plans for house building in Mid Sussex and in West Sussex.

Nicholas has the full support of all his West Sussex Conservative Parliamentary colleagues who have also put their name to the motion.

Nicholas Soames said; “My colleagues and I have vigorously lobbied the Government for eight years over its housing targets for West Sussex. We all accept that some development is necessary but the scale that is proposed is totally unsustainable not least because of the substantial infrastructure deficit in the region made more immediate by the urgent shortfall in water supplies. All this has been verified by the report published last week by the South East Counties Campaign.

“It would be totally wrong for the Government to press ahead with these plans in the light of the evidence available such as the infrastructure deficit paper presented by myself to the Minister for Housing last year and the report published in January by the Labour dominated Environmental Audit Select Committee, Housing: Building a Sustainable Future.”

Mr Soames said: “By having this motion on the Parliamentary record I will raise it at Parliamentary Questions to call on the Deputy Prime Minister and other Ministers to account on how the Government intends to proceed. I hope to secure a full Parliamentary debate on this matter.”

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Notes to Editor

Text of Early Day Motion 245 – House Building in West Sussex

That this House expresses its grave concern at plans to impose massive building in West Sussex as part of the Government's Sustainable Communities Plan; welcomes the Environmental Audit Committee's report on housing, entitled, Housing: Building a Sustainable Future, which criticises the Government's plans, as not adequately considering the environmental impact of the proposed increase in house building; notes the extensive environmental impact such massive house building would have on the local area; shares the Committee's concern at the lack of an adequate evidence base for the Government's plans which fail to refer to environmental protection, which do not make adequate efforts towards sustainability, and which undermine the Government's own policy on sustainable development; calls on the Government to amend its plans to take into account the environmental impact of such development and to agree to further research as recommended by the Committee; further notes that the current proposals will lead to unacceptable overdevelopment in Mid Sussex and other parts of the South East and will also create further traffic congestion, water shortages, strain on the health service, and overcrowding on trains and other public transport and place undue pressure on all local services in an area already suffering from a substantial infrastructure deficit; condemns the Government for pressing ahead with this plan, even though West Sussex County Council has criticised the proposals; and calls on the Government not to take forward these misconceived and unsustainable plans, which will be harmful to the quality of life in West Sussex.

The Early Day Motion has been co-signed by Francis Maude MP (Horsham), Nick Herbert MP (Arundel and South Downs), Tim Loughton NP (Worthing East and Shoreham), Peter Bottomley MP (Worthing West), Nick Gibb MP (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) and Andrew Tyrie MP (Chichester).

South East Counties Counties campaign (the ten members are West Sussex, East Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Oxfordshire and Surrey) warns that £45 billion of infrastructure investment will be required to meet the extra house building proposed in the draft South East Plan. “South East Counties – The Costs and Funding of Growth in South East England Tel 0207 831 2711 0207 831 2711