News on West of Ifield

Homes England is the government’s housing accelerator. Our mission is to ensure more homes are built in the areas of greatest need to improve affordability and ensure more people in England have access to better homes in the right places – homes that are both affordable and suitable. We have a long-term commitment to create new neighbourhoods and great places to live, investing early in infrastructure to offset the impacts of development and help meet the needs of existing communities, along with a track record of delivery. Our point of difference is the capacity we possess to invest to create high quality places and new communities.

West of Ifield is at the heart of the Gatwick Diamond and represents a huge opportunity to deliver a new highly sustainable ‘15-minute neighbourhood’ that can address the acute housing need in the area, provide opportunities for existing residents as well as new residents – such as the early delivery of a new secondary school with sixth form – and help spearhead economic recovery in this area, whilst supporting environmental objectives, securing a biodiversity net gain by significantly improving the natural environment and keeping at least 50% of the site as open space.

This summer update is part of our commitment to keep the local community up to date with our Plans for West of Ifield and provides further information on the next steps for the scheme.

Since launching our engagement on the outline plans for West of Ifield in January 2020, Homes England has organised a series of events to inform the community of the plans whilst also progressing the proposals through the formal Horsham District Council Local Plan process . These events took place in January 2020, December 2020, and March 2021. Over this engagement period, hundreds of questions have been asked and in June we published a report, Responding to your questions , to answer some of the most frequently raised points. We have also published a number of topic updates to help people understand why the scheme is needed and how we will address key areas of concern and will continue to do this over the coming weeks.

We are now working on the next version of our plans, that take account of your community feedback, and continuing to engage with the Horsham Local Plan process and local community groups.

Since our last engagement, plans to hold a further series of community engagement events on the emerging masterplan have been postponed following Horsham District Council’s decision to delay publication of its draft Local Plan.

As a responsible landowner and accountable public body, we will ensure that our timetable is consistent with that of the local planning authority, to ensure that the proper planning process is followed, provide certainty to the community and ensure that we can address the immediate housing challenges at the earliest opportunity. We will therefore plan for the next round of public consultation on West of Ifield to take place after Horsham District Council consults on its draft Local Plan, (often referred to as ‘Reg 19’). The next public consultation will cover our final plans for the site, and we hope to hold in-person and online consultation engagement events. More detailed information, including exact dates for the engagement events, will be confirmed nearer the time. We look forward to seeing you then.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the information provided, the consultation or the proposals please get in touch at westofifield@homesengland.gov.uk or 020 8629 7209.