Management Statement for Neighbourhood Plan July 2025

In the wake of the Local Plan Inspector recommending withdrawal of Horsham’s Local Plan, a workshop was held for Parish Councils giving an interim view of what this means for those undertaking Neighbourhood Plans and those like Slinfold who already have a Neighbourhood Plan which is now greater than 5 years old and consequently out of date.  The message from HDC was fairly gloomy and as a consequence of no HDC Local Plan and our Plan being out of date, the presumption for any prospective development in the Parish is that it will be granted planning permission (ironically known as ‘the tilted balance in ‘planning speak’).  The bombshell issue for all Parishes and Slinfold is no exception is that we now have to revert to top down housing targets calculated from government issue ‘Standard Methodology’.  For Slinfold, the prescribed number is 20 dwellings per annum which is significantly more than our original Plan was based on.

At July’s Parish Council meeting the options from the Neighbourhood Plan Working Group were considered from do nothing to go through the full time and considerable expense of a new Neighbourhood Plan.​  Doing nothing is not an option but for a new Neighbourhood Plan, spending upwards of £50k with no external funding and no guarantee that it would actually prevent development is equally unattractive.

The fact is that our 2018 Plan, whilst older than 5 years and out of date, had a Plan period from 2018-2031 and much of the Plan is still very pertinent to the way residents of the Pari​sh want to see the Parish evolve.  So the Parish Council has issued a Management Statement which updates the position on housing numbers explaining we have enough sites allocated now to deliver HDC’s target of 20 dwellings for each of the years upto 2031, and from 2028 we will commence work on a new Plan to be ready from 2032. The Management Statement can be accessed here:- Management Statement for Meeting Housing Needs