Vistry and Hyde want all 92 homes planned south of Broadbridge Way to be affordable, up from 34. Horsham's Planning Committee decides on 18 August.
A 92-home scheme on land south of Broadbridge Way in Broadbridge Heath could now be built entirely as affordable housing, and Horsham District Council’s Planning Committee will decide whether to accept the revised deal when it meets on Tuesday 18 August at 5.30pm. The committee report recommends approval.
The application, DC/25/0894, was already resolved for approval at the committee’s meeting on 6 January 2026, on the basis that 34 of the 92 homes, 37 per cent, would be affordable and the rest sold on the open market. That was slightly better than the council’s own 35 per cent policy requirement, and the section 106 legal agreement securing it is described in the report as “almost at engrossment stage”.
What has changed is the developer’s offer. On 28 July 2026 Vistry formally presented a revised affordable housing offer to the council, backed by a Memorandum of Understanding from Hyde Housing Association, its selected registered provider. Under it, the 37 per cent becomes a minimum, and Vistry and Hyde intend to deliver the whole scheme, all 92 homes, as affordable housing, with the rented homes now offered as Social Rent rather than the more expensive Affordable Rent. (Planning Committee report, DC/25/0894, 18 August 2026)
The offer, in numbers
Hyde’s indicative tenure mix for a fully affordable scheme is no more than 55 homes for Social or Affordable Rent and the remaining 37 as Shared Ownership, a 59.7 per cent to 40.3 per cent split. Hyde already manages around 600 homes across the Horsham district, including in Broadbridge Heath. The scheme itself, a mix of houses and apartments with a new vehicular access onto Sergent Way, public open space and landscaping, is unchanged from January, as are its building standards: EPC A for the houses and EPC B for the apartments.
There is one important catch: the 100 per cent cannot be written into the legal agreement. The uplift depends on Homes England grant funding, and that grant cannot be used to pay for affordable housing a section 106 agreement already requires. So the legal agreement will continue to secure only the 34 homes, 37 per cent, as a floor; if the grant funding comes through, the remaining 58 homes become affordable too, and if it does not, they revert to open-market sale.
Why officers back it
The report sets out the pressure on affordable housing in the parish in unusually plain numbers. In January 2026 the housing register for Broadbridge Heath stood at 358 households; it has since risen to 373. Of those, 111 households need a one-bedroom home, 78 need two bedrooms, 140 need three bedrooms and 44 need four or more, and households waiting for three- and four-bedroom homes wait, on average, three times longer than those seeking smaller ones.
Officers also weigh the cost. Because affordable housing is exempt from the Community Infrastructure Levy, a fully affordable scheme would forgo roughly £900,000 in CIL contributions that the open-market homes would have generated, of which about £135,000 would have gone to Broadbridge Heath Parish Council to spend on local infrastructure. The draft section 106 agreement separately secures £50,000 for the parish. The report concludes the extra affordable homes, in a village whose wider Wickhurst Green development was permitted with only around 20 per cent affordable housing, justify accepting that loss.
Also before the committee on 18 August
The agenda lists four further items, all with officer recommendations to approve or confirm:
- DC/26/0010, Land North of Girder Bridge, Gay Street Lane, North Heath, Pulborough: use of a 0.79-hectare field beside the London to Portsmouth railway line, about 2km north of Pulborough’s built-up area, as a six-pitch residential site for Gypsies and Travellers. Officers recommend approval; it is before the committee because more than eight households objected on material planning grounds and Pulborough Parish Council requested it. (Report)
- DC/26/0616, 82 Bedford Road, Horsham: a partly retrospective single-storey rear extension. The submitted floor plans also show the four-bedroom house reconfigured to six en-suite bedrooms with a shared kitchen, a layout the report notes could operate as a small house in multiple occupation without needing further permission. More than eight households objected; officers recommend approval of the extension. (Report)
- TPO/1620, land off The Crescent, behind 45 to 51 Hillside, Horsham: confirmation of a Tree Preservation Order made on 4 June 2026 protecting a group of ten trees, four sycamore, two cedar, two ash, one yew and one hawthorn, after three objections. (Report)
- DC/26/0830, Park House, North Street, Horsham: listed building consent to replace a basement sash window at the rear of the Grade II* listed building with a ventilation louvre, to improve airflow and discourage damp. It is on the agenda because the applicant is Horsham District Council itself. (Report)
What it means for you
If you are one of the 373 households on the housing register for Broadbridge Heath, this is the meeting to watch: the difference between the January deal and the revised one is up to 31 extra rented homes allocated through the council’s housing register and nominations policy, on top of the 24 rented homes already secured. The committee meets in public at the Council Chamber, Albery House, Springfield Road, Horsham, at 5.30pm on Tuesday 18 August; the full papers are on the agenda page, and questions about attending go to committeeservices@horsham.gov.uk or 01403 215465.
If you want to track any of these applications, or comment on others near you, our guide to Horsham planning applications explains how to search the council’s register and make representations. The wider housing numbers behind decisions like this one, including the district’s raised 18,712-home target, are set out in our Horsham planning news briefing.
Have your say