Henfield Parish Council (HPC) is aware that Croudace Homes has delivered letters to many, if not all, Henfield residents on Monday 7th October with an invitation to a public event on 22nd October. At the same time, HPC received an email notifying us ‘given our role in the community' of their intention. However, we currently have no more knowledge of their plans than that contained in their public letter and we were unaware that Croudace were planning on circulating Henfield residents.

Henfield has five sites allocated for development that were agreed in 2021 in a public referendum and these are listed in our Neighbourhood Plan (click here). The land to which Croudace refer is not one of our ‘approved’ sites.

We recognise the need for additional housing across the country as a whole but our priority in Henfield is to utilise the sites in the Neighbourhood Plan. At present, of the five agreed sites, Horsham District Council (the deciding authority) has only received a full planning proposal for one of these sites (Backsettown) and we believe that one other (Land at Parsonage Farm) may be imminent. In addition, the draft Local Plan (ie the plan for the whole of Horsham District) allocated a further two sites in Henfield Parish, although the Local Plan has yet to be approved by the Planning Inspector - and neither of these additional sites relates to the land referred to by Croudace

HPC has a duty of course to consider any applications for development and will be interested in reading the Croudace Homes proposals but should emphasise that we have had no prior knowledge of the plans for a public event. By definition of the land in question not being a site agreed in our Neighbourhood Plan, this is a ’speculative’ approach for development.

When we know more, we will inform residents of the Parish Council view.

Kevin Wright, Clerk to Henfield Parish Council