Mid Sussex District Council is currently consulting on its five year housing strategy including outlining plans relating to building new social housing, tackling homelessness and laying down environmental standards for new housing.

The increase in the affordable housing requirement for new developments from 30% to 40% on sites of 15 houses or above is welcome, but the requirement of 20% affordable housing on sites of 5-14 homes does not go far enough, and all sites irrespective of size should make some contribution to this target.

However developers would use the under twenty rule to circumvent this policy, and build larger sites by combining them together at a later stage, avoiding the need to build social housing, particularly in rural areas, and avoiding the need to provide the infrastructure that would be required for larger developments.

The document is worryingly friendly to developers, warning that “flexibility has to be applied to ensure schemes remain viable, and [Mid Sussex District Council] are liaising with local developers to try to identify ways to enable them to continue to develop” – it is important the Conservative council puts local people first by ensuring developers pay a proper contribution for local infrastructure in the communities in which they are based.

The target for a Sustainable Buildings Code of level 3 is insufficient and merely confirms existing building regulation requirements, the best developers are already exceeding this target.   All new developments should have a Code level 5 with the highest level of energy efficiency and water conservation which is a requirement of neighbouring authorities such as Brighton.  The Council needs to wake up to the need for a low carbon future, particularly for new housing where it is much cheaper to build environmentally friendly, and stop giving developers a free ride if they build in Mid Sussex.

Have your say by submitting your own comments by 1^st June or reviewing the policy or a summary at   http://www.midsussex.gov.uk/page.cfm?pageID=3642 .