It looks like there will be 2,500 new homes built in the strategic gap between Horsham and Crawley, just West of Bewbush.  The plans have been agreed by both councils, although the Horsham leader, Liz Kitchen has expressed reservations saying she doesn’t want to see the two towns joining up.

Well, that could easily be avoided.  Horsham district is some 530 km², making it the 93rd largest district in England (out of 354); so why put the majority of the district’s housing allocation right next to a town that is not even in the district?  The town of Horsham has a real shortage of housing, especially affordable housing.  Nothing unusual about that. The whole district, indeed the whole of the South-East has a shortage of housing, with many young couples living with parents or in-laws and with little chance of moving out unless they move away from where their jobs and families are.

These 2,500 new homes will be adjacent to Crawley.  The next time boundaries are re-drawn it will mean that the boundary of Crawley will move outwards to include those new houses.  The edge of Crawley will be a bit closer to the town  of Horsham, a chunk of Horsham district will become part of Crawley borough, and any social housing included in the new development will almost certainly come to be allocated to people on Crawley’s housing register and not Horsham’s.

In the longer term these new homes will do nothing to relieve Horsham’s shortage of housing, and erode the strategic gap, so why put them there in the first place?   The answer might lie in the attitude to new developments.  While everyone living in cramped conditions and faced with the choice of putting up with it or leaving their home town might see the appearance of new homes, especially affordable, social or key-worker housing, as a lifeline, Horsham district council see them as a nuisance.

That allocation of housing could have been spread across the district, with an average of 50-ish units in each parish – more in the larger towns.  It is a wasted opportunity.