Increase in number of homes included in Crawley Borough Council’s Local Plan to meet the area’s housing need

No new sites have been chosen for housing – the change to numbers was made after a planning inspector recommended that the Plan should run from 2023 to 2040 rather than the 2024 to 2040 option which had been submitted for examination.

A number of hearings which looked into the contents of the Plan ended on February 5.

Now a six-week consultation is being held to gather people’s views on a number of modifications which have been made.

The modifications, due to the inspector’s recommendations, include increasing the number of homes which will have been built by 2040 from 5,030 to 5,330.

A council spokesman said: “There are some already consented sites which were expected to deliver before the Local Plan period, but which will now be within it.”

The number of new homes actually needed by 2040 increased from 12,080 to 12,835 – 755 per year for 17 years rather than 16 years.

As a result, the expected shortfall – known as unmet need – rose from 7,050 homes to 7,505.

Unlike districts such as Horsham and Mid Sussex, Crawley’s boundaries are tight and the borough has very little land on which to build.

In such cases, neighbouring authorities have been taking on some of the burden, accounting for Crawley’s unmet need in their own Local Plans.

The spokesman added: “It should be noted that the Local Plan continues to deliver an annualised average of around 314 dwellings per annum and meet 42 per cent of the total housing need within Crawley.

“These proportions have remained the same even with the additional year added to the Plan period.”

Anyone who would like to take part in the consultation must submit their responses by 5pm on March 25.

• Online: using the council’s eform at: Local Plan main modifications representation – Crawley Local Plan – Section 1 – myCrawley
• Email: Complete the form and email to [email protected]
• Post: Forward Planning, Crawley Borough Council, Town Hall, The Boulevard, Crawley RH10 1UZ.