Andrew Griffith MP joins Henfield residents in objecting to Local Plan site

The MP received a flurry of letters and emails from the community sharing their views ahead of the meeting outside of The Old Railway Pub, which was attended by approximately 60 people.

The widest concern raised with Mr Griffith by residents was the fact that the proposal was not in Henfield’s adopted neighbourhood plan – despite the Government’s directive to local authorities to respect the will of neighbourhood plans. Attendees also shared their worries about an additional speculative application from a developer for a further 82 houses on adjacent land.

Some residents raised fears around the recent technical outages experienced by Horsham District Council’s planning portal which they argued prevented them from making their views known to the local authority’s leadership.

Since 2019, the local MP has been prominent in his calls for reforms to the planning system, much of which has been adopted by the Government in recent updates to housebuilding rules, including a focus on brownfield land in cities and urban areas.

Commenting on the meeting, Andrew Griffith MP said:

“I was delighted that dozens of residents joined me to share their frustrations at Horsham District Council’s plan to overdevelop Henfield.

I have listened to the local residents and so should they. We cannot accept a local authority disregarding a Neighbourhood Plan adopted by the local community to develop another 55 houses – especially on land which was never considered ‘developable’ in the first place.

Our local councils have been given the tools to prevent overdevelopment like this – they should make the right decision and remove this land from their local plan.”