Council submits response to Government consultation | Latest news

Arun District Council has submitted its response to the Governments consultation ‘Changes to the Current Planning System’.

The consultation document proposes that the housing requirement for Arun District be increased by 52% to over 2,000 dwellings a year. The consultation also proposes to significantly reduce the amount of affordable that would be delivered by developers.

Cabinet Member for Planning, Cllr Martin Lury, has submitted the comments in response to this consultation on behalf of Arun District Council. The response questions how the Government-increased target of 337,000 homes per year has been calculated and why nearly all of this increase is located in the south east. It also questions whether such targets are realistic in terms of the methodology used to come up with the figure and the deliverability of this figure.

Arun has over 4,000 dwellings with planning permission, with an average of only 600 a year being delivered by the developers. The Council objects to the significantly reduced delivery of affordable homes which could result in Arun losing approximately 250 affordable homes over the next 18 months.

Cllr Lury said: “The proposals within the consultation from the Government are hugely concerning for Arun. They would place a significantly increased requirement on housing delivery at a time when there is little evidence of the development industry being able to deliver such high numbers. There is also concern about the impact such high numbers would have on the character of Arun and the ability of the infrastructure to cope.”