East Hampshire is a beautiful place to live and work in. The combination of stunning countryside, vibrant towns, beautiful villages and easy access to London and the south coast is a real draw for those of us lucky enough to live here.
Housing in East Hampshire
East Hampshire, like the rest of the country, needs to build more homes. It is a particularly acute issue in our area, as is the case in most of the South East, because of the high house-price-to-income ratios. Whilst we do need to build more, we also need to protect our green spaces and ensure the correct infrastructure is in place to support new settlements. I firmly support the ‘brownfield first’ principle, but a constraining factor in East Hampshire is that we have relatively little brownfield space for development.
East Hampshire District Council has a 'local plan', covering the period 2012-2040. In late 2023, the council consulted on a draft of this local plan, which set out indicative sites for new homes. Many of you responded to this consultation and also got in touch with me to raise concerns about the sites being proposed, including areas near to Alton. Proposed house building, in or near to an established community, is always going to be controversial and I do completely understand the strength of feeling about some of the sites that have been put forward. The responses to the consultation can be viewed here.
National Planning Policy is set by central government, which produces guidance for local planning authorities such as East Hampshire District Council. The government has now consulted on revising the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This follows the previous government's revisions to the framework in 2022 (which East Hampshire District Council's draft local plan was based on), In simple terms, what is now being proposed - a new 'standard method' - would mean a much higher housing target for East Hampshire. The information provided by the government during the consultation suggests that the required uplift to East Hampshire's housing targets is 86%. I believe such a sizable uplift cannot be accommodated by our existing infrastructure and so schools, GP surgeries and other local infrastructure would struggle to cope.
I have raised my concerns about this new target both to the Ministers at the relevant government department in my response to the consultation (see below) and in a debate on rural affairs in November 2024.
Theoretically the next stage of the local plan is for East Hampshire District Council to formally respond to its consultation. This was anticipated to take place in the latter half of 2024, but will now need to take into account any changes to the housing target for East Hampshire following the Government's review of the NPPF, so will, most likely, push into 2025.
When I meet constituents concerned about the impact of house building on their community I always stress that any proposals will have to take into account the future infrastructure requirements of additional households, including the impact on local roads and public transport, as well as water and sewage services. Providers of these services are known as 'statutory consultees' and play a key role in any decisions about housing in an area. Other essential services, such as GP surgeries, dentists and school places, also need to be taken into account when housing developments are being considered. I am in regular touch with the Integrated Care Board for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (which oversees NHS services in Hampshire), as well as the education team within Hampshire County Council, to understand how they are planning for any future housing developments.
Planning and the South Downs National Park
A unique complicating factor for our area, and one i have spoken at length about, is the existence of the South Downs National Park, which has a boundary that runs through the middle of East Hampshire's planning area. As a result, East Hampshire is partly in the national park and partly outside it. The critical point is that different planning rules apply to national parks.
Any uplift to the government imposed housing target would place further pressure on areas outside the national park - Alton, Four Marks, Medstead - which have already seen significant development in recent years.
Furthermore, decisions about housing developments within the national park rest with the South Downs National Park Authority and not with East Hampshire District Council, which is another complicating factor.
My view is that there should be different targets for developments inside and outside national parks. I will keep pushing the government on this point.
The BBC recently ran this story which shows some of the issues involved with the government’s new housing targets, and illustrates (see the map) some of the anomalies created, including that targets in London are actually going down https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk4y05vp61o
A31 Veolia Incinerator
Back in 2022, I campaigned against Veolia's plans to convert its current recycling site on the A31 near Alton into an incinerator. Despite the recommendation from planning officers at HCC to approve Veolia's application for planning permission to build and operate the incinerator, I was delighted that Hampshire County Council refused planning permission at their meeting on the 23 February 2022. Supported by councillors Mark Kemp-Gee, Andrew Joy and Adam Carew, I lodged objections during the public consultation periods, stating at the time that:
“If this kind of facility is required (and, to my mind, that is a very big ‘if’), there must be a better location for it. The beauty of the Wey Valley is precious and the impact of the proposed facility on our countryside, the historic town of Alton and its surrounding villages is, I believe, unacceptable." I commend the No Wey Incinerator group for the enormous amount of work undertaken by its members to present detailed and cogent arguments against Veolia’s proposal."
The deadline for Veolia to appeal the planning refusal was September 2022. No appeal was submitted.