THANK YOU ALL FOR SUBMITTING YOUR COMMENTS OF HAVANT BOROUGH COUNCIL’S NEW LOCAL PLAN STRATEGY

THE LOCAL PLAN WILL NEXT BE PUT OUT FOR CONSULTATION AT THE END OF 2023

IN THE MEAN-TIME THIS WEB-SITE WILL BE UPDATED TO INCLUDED UPDATES AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON HOW TO KEEP OUR CAMPAIGN GOING

Why is ‘Protecting our AONB’ important?

In recent years much of Havant’s green space has been built on. Havant Borough Council (HBC) are under pressure from unrealistic government-imposed housing targets to find even more land to build houses. HBC are writing a new Local Plan which will include how greenfield sites are to be assessed as suitable for development.

The housing target is 516 dwellings per year to 2040. That is over 7,700 new dwellings. Emsworth has approx. 4,300 dwellings so it’s equivalent to building nearly 2 new Emsworth’s in 15 years.

The land between Emsworth and Langstone is the most significant area of green space left in Havant. Fortunately it was designated part of the Chichester Harbour Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1964 which has protected the area from development since. However HBC’s ‘no development in the AONB’ policy is proposed to be replaced by a ‘criteria-based policy’ which could be used to justify granting development applications that would have been previously rejected.

To date there has been no major developments in the AONB from Havant to Chichester, all development applications have been rejected. However it only takes one development to be approved to set a precedent for many other sites along the A259.

What has just happened

HBC’ new Local Plan strategy has been summarised in the ‘Building a Better Future’ booklet, a copy of which had been delivered to Havant residents in October. There is more information on the Havant Borough Council web-site at  https://www.havant.gov.uk/local-plan. This had been put out for consultation, closing date for comments was 14th November.

What happens next

Havant Borough Council will now create the detailed Local Plan taking into account strategy consultation comments. A call for development sites have also gone out to local landowners. At the end of 2023 HBC will circulate the detailed local plan and proposed development site allocation for another consultation road.

We will use this web-site to provide updates, more background information and recommendation on how to keep the campaign running. Watch this space.

Looking SW over Emsworth's AONB