Officers recommend approving six Gypsy and Traveller pitches off Gay Street Lane, North Heath, over 28 objections and the parish council. Horsham's Planning Committee decides Tuesday 18 August.
Horsham District Council’s planning officers are recommending approval for a six-pitch Gypsy and Traveller site on a field north of Girder Bridge, off Gay Street Lane at North Heath, about two kilometres north of Pulborough. The application, DC/26/0010, goes before the Planning Committee at 5.30pm on Tuesday 18 August in the Council Chamber at Albery House, Horsham, at the request of Pulborough Parish Council, which objects, and after 28 letters of objection from local addresses (committee report; agenda).
The officers’ case rests on one fact above the rest: the council cannot currently show a five-year supply of deliverable Gypsy and Traveller sites, and there is an identified need for more pitches in the district. Under paragraph 28 of the government’s Planning Policy for Traveller Sites, that shortfall triggers the “tilted balance” in the National Planning Policy Framework, which means permission should be granted unless the harm clearly outweighs the benefit. The report says that need carries “significant weight” and that six permanent pitches would make “a meaningful contribution” to meeting it.
What is proposed
The site is roughly 0.79 hectares of grassland and scrub, bounded on its western side by public footpath 1998 and a belt of mature trees, and on its eastern side by the London to Portsmouth railway line. The house called Girder Bridge, in the applicant’s ownership, sits to the south. Each of the six pitches would take one static caravan, with amenity space, two parking spaces, cycle parking and bin storage; a package treatment plant would handle sewage, and vehicles would use the existing track from Gay Street Lane, which also forms part of the footpath (report, paragraphs 1.2 to 1.5).
The land is outside any built-up area boundary and in the countryside, but not in a national landscape designation. It sits in Flood Zone 1, the lowest fluvial flood risk, though the report acknowledges mapped surface-water flood risk in the wider locality and makes the drainage design a pre-commencement condition, to be settled after infiltration testing.
The council’s own Strategic Gypsy and Traveller Site Assessment, part of the evidence for the emerging Local Plan, judged this land suitable in principle for five pitches. It was never formally allocated. The applicant wants six; officers say the earlier figure was “an indicative capacity rather than a maximum” and that the submitted layout shows six can fit.
Who objects and why
29 letters came in from 26 addresses, 28 objecting and one neutral. The grounds the report summarises are the ones anyone who drives Gay Street Lane will recognise: a narrow carriageway with a blind bend under Girder Bridge, the single-lane section beneath the bridge, poor visibility close to the A29 junction, and an access track described as unsuitable for caravans, delivery lorries and emergency vehicles. Residents also say the site and its access flood regularly, that six pitches is too many for the spot, and that the applicant has not shown a legal right to drive over what is a public footpath.
Pulborough Parish Council objects and used its right to call the application to committee. Its full objection, published on Friday as an addendum to the agenda, argues that the entrance is on a sharp bend “with a history of near-misses and accidents”, estimates the extra traffic at “potentially over 9,600” vehicle movements a year, says the treatment plant looks undersized for six caravans, points to train-horn noise from the adjacent railway, and notes that the draft Local Plan identified the site for five pitches, not six. It also states that there is an outstanding enforcement notice, EN/25/0159, relating to unauthorised clearance and engineering works on the site. The officers’ report does not mention that notice.
West Sussex County Council’s Rights of Way team objects. Its officer says the development would bring a significant increase in vehicles along what is now a quiet footpath, that the application does not say how conflict with walkers would be managed, and that the applicant does not appear to own the track and has produced no evidence of private vehicular rights over it. Driving on a public footpath without such rights is a criminal offence, the officer notes, and creating them through the definitive map process would be “lengthy, subject to objection, and unlikely to succeed” (report, paragraphs 3.21 to 3.24).
The council’s own tree officer wants more information before the impact on the site’s mature trees, including several oaks with veteran characteristics along the footpath, can be assessed. A central oak in the field would have to come out to make room for the pitch layout, and upgrading the rutted track could damage the roots of the trees beside it.
Who does not object
West Sussex County Council as highway authority raises no objection. Its view is that no change is proposed to the existing access onto Gay Street Lane, that a single-family Traveller site would not materially intensify traffic, and that on-site turning lets vehicles leave in forward gear. Crucially, it says questions about the footpath itself, including whether vehicles may lawfully use it, are for the Rights of Way authority and not for the planning decision. The officers’ report leans on that distinction: it treats the access-rights dispute as a separate legal matter that “does not provide justification for resisting the planning application on highway safety grounds”.
The council’s landscape architect has no objection, calling the scheme small in scale. The ecology consultant initially objected over the reptile survey and newt evidence but withdrew that objection in May, subject to conditions; NatureSpace, which runs the district newt licensing scheme, is content. Drainage and environmental health want further detail, which officers propose to secure by condition rather than refusal.
What it means for you
- If you live on or use Gay Street Lane, the decision on Tuesday settles the planning question but not the access one. Even with permission, the county’s Rights of Way officer says vehicular use of footpath 1998 depends on private rights that have not been evidenced. Expect that argument to continue after the vote.
- If you wanted to speak at the meeting, the council’s rules require notice by noon two working days beforehand, which for Tuesday’s meeting fell on Friday 14 August (committee procedure guidance). You can still attend the Council Chamber at Albery House, Springfield Road, from 5.30pm; the parish council gets five minutes, objectors and supporters three minutes each within an overall nine-minute limit per side.
- If members refuse against the officer recommendation, they will need planning reasons that stand up at appeal, and the report has been written to close most of them off: highways, ecology, landscape, flood risk and drainage are all assessed as acceptable subject to conditions. The unresolved threads are the footpath rights and the trees.
- The wider context is the district’s Gypsy and Traveller pitch shortfall, which will keep bringing unallocated rural sites to committee until the new Local Plan, now out for its main modifications, allocates enough to restore a five-year supply.
Also on Tuesday’s agenda
- DC/25/0894, land south of Broadbridge Way, Broadbridge Heath: the 92-home Vistry scheme returns so members can accept the revised offer to build all 92 as affordable housing, with Hyde as landlord, which we reported on 11 August. Recommended for approval.
- DC/26/0616, 82 Bedford Road, Horsham: a single-storey rear extension, partly retrospective, at a house whose floor plans also show a reconfiguration from four bedrooms to six en-suite rooms with a shared kitchen. 51 objection letters from 46 addresses raise HMO intensification, parking on already crowded streets and loss of garden. Officers say occupation by up to six people falls within Use Class C4 and needs no change-of-use permission, so the committee is deciding the extension only; recommended for approval (report).
- TPO/1620, land off The Crescent behind 45 to 51 Hillside, Horsham: confirmation of a provisional order made on 4 June protecting a group of ten trees (four sycamore, two cedar, two ash, a yew and a hawthorn), against three objections from people with an interest in the land. Recommended to confirm as served (report).
- DC/26/0830, Park House, North Street, Horsham: listed building consent, applied for by the council itself, to replace a basement sash window on the Grade II* building with a grey aluminium ventilation louvre to combat damp; recommended for approval (report).
We will report the decisions once the minutes or decision notices are published. To track any of these applications yourself, the case references above can be entered on the council’s public access register.
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