'Naive and reckless': MP hits out at Horsham's Local Plan for future development

The plan sets out where and how much housing development will take place across the district over coming years. But Horsham MP Jeremy Quin is far from impressed.

He says the council’s attitude towards water neutrality which underpins the proposed levels of development is ‘naïve and reckless’ and grossly underestimates the amount of water required by householders.

He met with officials from Natural England – which originally identified concerns over excessive water extraction in the area – last week and later said that water levels have been so depleted that there is a threat to bio diversity.

“This threat is unique to our part of the country and must be reflected fully in the Local Plan,” he said. However, he said, the plan assumed that new residents would use only 85 litres of mains water per day – although the standard in current building regulations is 125 litres with average use far highter.

"Horsham District Council’s expectation implies new residents will only use enough mains water for just one short shower a day and nothing else. This would imply no use of mains water for a bath, for drinking, for flushing toilets.” He said there also appeared to be no plans for the council to monitor water usage to enable it to challenge the effectiveness of developers’ solutions.

He added: “I believe Horsham District Council’s plan is naïve in expecting a huge change in human behaviour and massive investment by developers in unproven technology, none of which will be monitored. They have adopted targets for today that are generally regarded as an aspiration for the distant future and only achievable with extensive, tested investment by developers and residents.

"Horsham District Council expecting these numbers to be hit is simply naïve and by adopting them it recklessly puts at risk the future sustainability of the water aquifer and our local, natural habitats.

“The Plan accepts more development in Horsham on the basis of water neutrality plans that may ‘add up’ on paper but in practice will be unmonitored and unviable.

“Horsham District Council’s 85 litre per person per day strategy is far lower than current consumption. The Plan requires householders to make huge behavioural changes and benefit from massive investment which isn’t committed. New residents wanting to live in our area will be presented with a choice: a new build with water restrictors, an existing property with no restrictors or moving into the new property and having the water restrictors removed. How will this actually work in practice?

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“The water consumption expectation has been set far too low and this is an error which allows additional, unsustainable, building.

“I also believe there is insufficient evidence that Horsham District Council currently have the in depth knowledge to judge the efficacy of developers’ plans for water consumption and HDC have no plans to monitor whether this is actually being achieved in practice.”

A public consultation on the Local Plan is being run by the council until 5pm on March 1.