Six Gypsy and Traveller pitches off Gay Street Lane refused 10 votes to 3, on train horns and vehicle movements. Officers had recommended approval.
Plans for six Gypsy and Traveller pitches on farmland north of Pulborough have been refused. Horsham District Council issued the decision notice on Friday 11 September (planning register, DC/26/0010).
The site is 0.79 hectares of grassland and scrub at Land North of Girder Bridge, Gay Street Lane, North Heath, about two kilometres north of Pulborough’s built-up area boundary and roughly ten miles south-west of Horsham. The London to Portsmouth railway runs along its eastern edge.
Councillors refused it against their own officers, who had recommended approval. The vote was recorded at 10 to 3.
The four reasons
The Planning Committee gave these reasons for refusal (draft minutes, 8 September 2026):
- train noise, including the sounding of horns, so close to the site that it would significantly affect the residential amenity of people living in the caravans
- vehicle movements from the site significantly affecting the amenity of the nearest house
- the site’s location, isolation and enclosure, in particular by the railway embankment, which the council reads as a significant barrier to development under Policy 23 of its 2015 planning framework
- no evidence of consultation with Network Rail, no asset protection assessment, and no acoustic or air quality assessment, given the risks of building next to the line
Why the application came back a second time
The committee had already voted to refuse on 18 August. It then had to vote again three weeks later, because the national policy its reasons rested on had stopped existing as a separate document the day before that first meeting.
The National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August 2026 replaced the December 2024 version (GOV.UK). Annex A of the new Framework lists the Planning Policy for Traveller Sites (12 December 2024) among documents whose content “has either been fully or partially incorporated within the National Planning Policy Framework or no longer represents up-to-date government policy”. The government’s own page for that document now says planning policy for traveller sites “has been replaced by the NPPF” (GOV.UK, updated 27 August 2026).
Horsham’s councillors had cited that traveller sites policy in their August refusal. In a report to the September meeting, the Head of Development and Building Control told them the document now “holds no weight” as a separate policy, rather than merely carrying reduced weight as members had been advised during the August debate. On that reading, the reasons as minuted “would not represent an accurate or reasonable means in which to refuse the application” (addendum, 8 September 2026).
So the same four objections were rewritten to rest on the new Framework and on the council’s own 2015 policies instead. Members then voted again. Two further changes were made in the room: the Framework reference became Policy P3 rather than 3, and part (e) of Policy 23 was dropped.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said on 18 August that the change was one of tidying rather than substance, and that it had “removed duplication, not protections” (MHCLG in the Media).
How the vote went
Ten members voted for refusal: Mike Croker, Ross Dye, Nigel Emery, Lynn Lambert, Dennis Livingstone, Gill Perry, Josh Potts, Sam Raby, John Trollope and Claire Vickers.
Three voted against it: Colette Blackburn, Jay Mercer and Jon Olson.
Councillor Len Ellis-Brown, the committee chairman, is a ward member for Pulborough, Coldwaltham and Amberley. He did not vote and handed the chair to the vice-chairman, John Trollope, for the item.
What officers had argued
The officer report is worth reading alongside the refusal, because it makes the opposite case in detail (committee report).
Officers said the council cannot currently demonstrate an up-to-date five-year supply of deliverable Gypsy and Traveller sites, that a need for more pitches in the district remains, and that those two facts carry significant weight in favour of new accommodation. Six permanent pitches would make what they called a meaningful contribution. The site had also already been identified in the council’s own evidence base as suitable in principle for this use.
Consultees were largely content. West Sussex County Council’s highways team raised no objection. Nor did the council’s landscape architect, its ecology consultant after revisions, or the district’s newt licensing scheme. The one consultee objection came from the county’s public rights of way officer, over whether lawful private vehicular rights exist along the access track, which doubles as public footpath PUL-1998.
Residents disagreed. The council received 29 letters from 26 addresses, 28 of them objecting, mostly about the safety of the access: a narrow carriageway, the blind bend under Girder Bridge, the single-lane section beneath it, and the junction with the A29. Pulborough Parish Council also objected, saying there was not enough information, and asked for the decision to be taken by committee rather than an officer.
What happens next
The applicant is named on the register as Mr R Pettett, acting through Promethean Planning of Chichester. Only an applicant can appeal a refusal, and the council’s own guidance on the register says they usually have six months to do it, which would run to around 11 March 2027. Nothing had been lodged when we checked the register on 18 September.
Objectors cannot appeal. The register notes they can seek a judicial review if the council has not followed the legal process properly.
What it means for you
If you live along Gay Street Lane or Stallhouse Lane, the position today is that the field stays as it is. That is not necessarily final: an appeal would be decided by a planning inspector, not by the council, and the inspector would look afresh at the same reasons.
If you objected to this application, or plan to object to another, the useful lesson is in how the refusal was rewritten. Reasons anchored to a national document that has been withdrawn or absorbed do not survive; reasons anchored to physical effects on a specific site, such as noise you can measure, did. Our guide to planning applications in Horsham district explains how to search the register and how the comment deadlines work.
The wider point is that the district still has no five-year supply of Traveller pitches, by its own officers’ account. That shortfall does not go away because one site was refused, and it will be argued again on the next application. Members are due to consider four more pitches at Fryern Park Farm, Storrington, on Tuesday 22 September.
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