Plans revealed for 3,000 homes West of Ifield
An exhibition was held yesterday laying out the latest proposals
Homes England plans to submit a hybrid application for 3,000 homes west of Ifield before the summer.
An exhibition at the Apple Tree Centre, in Ifield, was held on Wednesday (April 30), laying out the latest proposals.
The site was allocated for development in Horsham District Council’s Local Plan. The news that planning inspector Luke Fleming was unhappy with parts of the Plan and recommended it be withdrawn, will not impact the West of Ifield proposals.
Chris Bearton, head of planning & enabling at Homes England, said: “The need for new homes is a key issue for both Horsham and Crawley. Just because the Local Plan might fall away – and that’s still to be determined through the council – the urgent need for housing doesn’t. Even if the Local Plan falls away, we’re still anticipating to submit that planning application.
“It would still go through the level of scrutiny and assessment that any other planning application would need to. It just so happens that it wouldn’t have been tested as part of the Local Plan, it would be purely down to consideration of the planning application.”
Campaigners gathered at the gates of the Apple Tree Centre, including members of the Save West of Ifield campaign. They had a string of questions for Homes England, including concerns about infrastructure, healthcare, the environment, and the ever-present fear that Crawsham – the merging of Crawley and Horsham – would become a thing.
Save West of Ifield chair Fenella Maitland-Smith, said the campaign was not opposed to new housing and supported the idea of more social housing for Crawley. But she questioned whether the Homes England proposals would deliver such homes.
She added: “What we want is the right houses in the right place, and we don’t believe that that’s what West of Ifield will deliver.”
David Moon, of the Ifield Society, spoke about the threat to wildlife and the area’s biodiversity, especially species of beetle.
He said: “What I’m interested in is saving the birds, the butterflies and other insects, the wild flowers – anything to do with the countryside. Because that area of Ifield is the only open countryside left around Crawley.”
Looking at the changes made since the last exhibition, Mr Bearton said Homes England had ‘listened and responded’ to concerns raised.
This included how they had ‘avoided building in flood-risk areas’ and how the grandly titled Crawley Western Multi-Modal Corridor – a road with sections for cars, buses, bicycles and pedestrians – will be built through the northern part of the site.
Mr Bearton said he was ‘really confident’ that Homes England was on top of the flooding concerns, working on a bespoke flood model with the Environment Agency.
A much larger nature conservation area is proposed in the southern part of the site, following concerns about the bat population.
The exhibition included reassurance that Ifield Brook and Ifield Brook Meadows would be ‘retained and protected’ and that housing along the boundary would ‘respect the sensitive landscape setting’.
Mr Bearton stressed that the plan was to build infrastructure before homes.
As well as the western road, the key features for phase one, covering the first three years of development, include: a secondary school, primary road, substation, water treatment works, and pumping station.
Changes will be made to Rusper Road, diverting it into the site to connect to the western road, with part of it closed to all but residents.
One point along the road will be kept open until the western road is ready, so that people can get to the new school.
House building will start in the third year, with 1,249 homes expected to be finished by year 10, a further 713 by year 12, 764 by year 15, and 274 by year 15.
Mr Bearton said that, should the application be approved, it was hoped that building would start at the end of 2026 or early 2027, with the first homes built and occupied by 2030.
He could not say if or when further developments would be tabled in the coming years to take the West of Ifield development up to the 10,000 homes originally proposed over the next 30 years.