Officers back four more Traveller pitches at Fryern Park Farm, Storrington, taking the site to six despite parish objections. Councillors vote on 22 September.

Horsham District Council’s planning officers are recommending approval for four more Gypsy and Traveller pitches at Fryern Park Farm, on the northern edge of Storrington. The site already has two pitches, so it would grow to six.

The Planning Committee decides the application, DC/26/0151, at 5.30pm on Tuesday 22 September in the Council Chamber at Albery House, Horsham (agenda). Storrington and Sullington Parish Council objects. So do 10 letters from nine addresses, and the council’s own landscape architect.

Officers say the deciding fact is the council’s shortfall. It cannot currently show a five-year supply of Gypsy and Traveller pitches, and the report says that “weighs heavily in favour of granting planning permission” (committee report).

What is proposed

The land is currently used for keeping horses. The application would add:

  • four pitches, each with one static caravan and one touring caravan
  • two parking spaces per pitch
  • two single-storey amenity buildings, each about 6.5 metres wide, 4.8 metres deep and 4 metres high, and each divided in half inside, with a kitchen in each half

The buildings would be cream render with dark red tiles. The pitches would sit inside the site’s existing boundaries, which are lined with mature trees and hedges. According to the report, no work has started.

Part of the land, the south-eastern corner, is already earmarked for two extra pitches in the council’s draft Local Plan. Officers can give that only limited weight, because the plan is still at examination.

Why officers say yes

The national rules changed three weeks ago. The Government’s new National Planning Policy Framework, published on 17 August 2026, absorbed the separate policy for Traveller sites. Under its new Policy S5, development that meets “an evidenced unmet need” for Traveller accommodation “should be approved, unless the benefits of doing so would be substantially outweighed by any adverse effects”. The report applies that test here.

The need is set out in figures. The council’s 2024 review of Traveller accommodation found a need for 61 pitches by 2028. That is 50 for households who meet the planning definition of Gypsies and Travellers and 11 where it is unclear. Over the longer plan period, 2023 to 2040, the need is 79 pitches, with up to 20 more possible.

Against that, 47 pitches have been granted. The report lists 17 permissions between February 2024 and July 2026. One of them was four pitches at Oldfield Stables, also on Fryern Road, in November 2025.

Bar chart of Horsham district's Gypsy and Traveller pitch need to 2028: 61 pitches needed in total, 50 of them for households meeting the definition, 47 consented through 17 permissions between February 2024 and July 2026, and 51 if the four Fryern Park Farm pitches are approved
Graphic by Horsham Daily, from the council's committee report for DC/26/0151.
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The location has been tested at appeal before. The first two pitches were granted by a planning inspector under DC/18/2084. The inspector found the site sustainably located on the edge of Storrington and the visual harm “localised”.

A later bid for two more pitches, DC/20/0600, was eventually dismissed. The report says the inspector found its effects on the landscape, neighbours and road safety acceptable. It failed solely on water neutrality, the rule that new homes in the area must not increase water abstraction affecting the Arun Valley wildlife sites.

Officers say water is no longer a barrier. Natural England withdrew its 2021 position statement on 31 October 2025. The council now draws on 3,240,000 litres a day of savings made by Southern Water in 2024/25, through leakage reduction and other measures. Its assessment finds this scheme, with everything approved since October 2025, stays within that figure.

The report also sets out distances. Storrington’s built-up area boundary is about 154 metres to the east, and there is a bus stop near the Fryern Park junction. Storrington Primary School is about 800 metres’ walk away, and the village’s doctors and shops about 850 metres.

Who objects and why

Storrington and Sullington Parish Council objected in March over “excessive over development” and access to the site. In August its committee said a strong objection “remains the Council’s position”. It added that revised plans had only arrived on 31 July, so it could not yet make an informed decision on them.

The 10 objection letters raise, among other things:

  • the junction of Fryern Park and Fryern Road, which residents say is already difficult and unsafe to pull out of
  • more traffic on Fryern Park, and the safety of people using the public right of way
  • flooding and a deteriorating road surface on Fryern Park
  • the loss of countryside character in the green gap between Storrington and West Chiltington
  • the earlier refusal, which they say should still count
  • whether the site has adequate sanitation, drainage and waste disposal

The council’s landscape architect objects. The architect accepts the visual impact “would not likely be notable”. The concern is cumulative: piecemeal applications over time are eroding the small-scale grazing land described in local landscape assessments. The objection says the scheme conflicts with two district policies and two in the neighbourhood plan.

Member comments recorded in the report add detail about the road. They say visibility at the junction is obscured by a rise to the north and a bend and roadside vegetation to the south. Fryern Park is too narrow for two vehicles to pass, so walkers, cyclists and riders must step off the road. They also point to about 200 metres of missing pavement on Fryern Road.

Who does not object

  • West Sussex County Council, as highway authority, says the access has sufficient visibility and that collision data shows no recorded injury collisions near it. It found “no transport grounds to resist the proposal”.
  • The council’s drainage engineer objected at first. After a revised strategy in July 2026 the engineer was satisfied, with final details to be settled by condition.
  • Environmental health dropped its objection on pitch spacing after the revised plan.
  • The county’s rights of way team raised no objection.

What a permission would require

If councillors approve, officers propose 15 conditions. The main ones:

  • no industrial, commercial or business activity on the site
  • no external lighting or floodlighting without the council’s approval

  • no outside storage or burning of waste

  • only Gypsies and Travellers, as defined in the national framework, may live on the site

  • no more than four pitches under this permission, with one static caravan and one touring caravan each, and no one living in the tourers on site
  • no heavy goods vehicles, meaning three axles or more and over 3,500kg, at any time
  • water use capped at 110 litres per person per day
  • a drainage strategy and a landscaping scheme approved before any work starts
  • no gates, fences or walls beyond those approved in this application

Also on the agenda

Abingworth Meadows, Thakeham (DC/26/0945). Bellway Homes wants to keep a set of drainage swales dug into the buffer strip behind 2 to 22 Springett Close. They were put in to stop surface water flooding homes on the estate. Thakeham Parish Council says the work has been under way since November 2024, after the flooding of winter 2024/25. The plan would also open the strip to the public by removing fencing at each end.

There are 23 objection letters from 14 addresses and a planning consultant. They raise privacy and security worries about public access, and ask for the swale to be fenced. Some also note that the estate’s promised workshops have not been built. The parish council does not object, subject to conditions. Officers say they have had no further flooding complaints since the system went in, and recommend approval (report).

Chewton, The Street, Slinfold (DC/26/0106). This is a driveway for a Grade II listed 16th-century timber-framed house in the conservation area, with St Peter’s Church to the north. It has been cut down to a single parking bay since an earlier, larger scheme was refused. The parish council objects on road safety grounds: it says the house is opposite a school and close to a junction.

Nine letters object. The council’s conservation officer says a parked car would hide the cottage from the street. Planning officers disagree about the degree of harm, calling it “very minimal”, and recommend approval (report).

What it means for you

  • To watch: the meeting is open to the public at Albery House, Springfield Road, from 5.30pm on Tuesday 22 September. It is also webcast on the council’s YouTube channel.
  • To speak: you must register by noon on Friday 18 September, two working days before, on a first come, first served basis. Contact committee services on 01403 215465 or committeeservices@horsham.gov.uk.
  • Speaking time: parish councils get five minutes each. Objectors get three minutes each, within nine minutes in total, and supporters the same. Ward councillors can speak for five minutes (procedure guidance).
  • If councillors refuse against the recommendation, they will need planning reasons that would survive an appeal. Both earlier appeals on this site accepted its location.

The committee dealt with a six-pitch site at Gay Street Lane, North Heath, in August; our report on that one explains the same pitch shortfall. You can search any application on the Horsham planning applications page, and our planning news page tracks the new Local Plan.

Sources