Maria Caulfield, Member of Parliament for Lewes, has met with Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, to ask him to consider putting both Lewes District Council and Wealden District Council into special measures to fast-track their local plans.
Currently planning inspectors are overturning local decisions to build on greenfield sites simply because there are no Local Plans for either Lewes or Wealden.
Local plans are legal documents that show where housing can and can't go and the infrastructure needed to support them. Once a Local Plan is in place, Neighbourhoods such as parishes and towns can then set out sites to be protected from housing in their local communities.
Local parishes and towns in Wealden and Lewes have already developed neighbourhood plans outlining where housing should go, but these are no longer valid without the district's Local Plans and are being overturned by planning inspectors as a result.
Maria Caulfield MP said:
“Our residents deserve better. Local plans need to be put in place as soon as possible to ensure mass concreting over green field space does not happen.
I have therefore spoken with the Secretary of State as he recently put nine other authorities into special measures because of their lack of Local Plans and I have asked him if he would consider putting both Lewes and Wealden councils into special measures to fast track their local plans.
Not having a local plan is simply unacceptable, local residents did not vote councillors in to sit back and do nothing.
We must protect our green spaces and I hope the councils will agree and finally put their local plans in place.”