Cabinet councillors issue warning over government planning reforms

Download the Lewes District Council response to the government consultation on the draft National Planning Policy Framework (PDF) [321KB]

Their comments come with only a week left until the government's consultation on its draft National Planning Policy Framework ends.

Councillor Zoe Nicholson, Leader of Lewes District Council, and Councillor Laurence O'Connor, Cabinet Member for Planning and Infrastructure, are urging town and parish councils, as well as local people, to follow them in submitting responses to the consultation.

Councillor Nicholson said: "It's really important our voices are heard so that the planning reforms we actually need, in Lewes district and nationwide, are put into place.

"We support the government's emphasis on use of brownfield sites but have serious concerns with other aspects of the reforms as they stand, not least because of the big setbacks it would mean for our Local Plan which we have been working so hard on, and that tens of thousands of people locally have engaged with.

"As well as re-doing this time-consuming work, these proposals require us to find even more sites for housing which is the exact opposite of what residents have told us they want and is very challenging due to the geography and demographic of Lewes district."

As Lewes District Council has been designated in respect of planning applications for major developments, councillors say delays to the Local Plan would increase the prospect of unplanned developments. 

Councillor O'Connor said: "These reforms could impact very negatively on Lewes district by making it easier for speculative developers to build homes on green spaces and reducing the ability of communities to hold such developers to account.

"Among our requests to government is a call to end mandatory targets for delivering homes and allowing us and other local authorities to make this assessment based on actual need.

"We have been working extremely hard to provide much-needed homes for local people, having built more council homes in the past five years than in the last two decades, and now we need the government's support in continuing to ensure we get the right homes in the right places."

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