CPRE Sussex Director’s column written for West Sussex Gazette, July 2024

As the dust begins to settle after a busy election period, there is an opportunity to work collaboratively to protect and celebrate the countryside, while also meeting very real housing and transport challenges.

Immediately after the election, CPRE Sussex wrote to all elected MPs to congratulate them on their success and invite them to meet with us to discuss our key asks for the next four years.

We believe there is an urgent need to “square the circle” of addressing the affordable housing crisis while also protecting the countryside. Last week the new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced a consultation on reforms to the National Planning Policy framework, including the return of mandatory housing targets.

We share the chancellor’s ambition for genuinely affordable housing. But we believe this will not be achieved by ripping up the planning rules for big private developers. Instead, we need to increase the requirement for affordable housing in developments and give local authorities a greater role in building social housing themselves. Locally we need to back communities to use rural exception sites to deliver small-scale affordable housing developments. Nationally we need to take the house price pressure off the South East with a regional economic development strategy.

We need to make housing work with nature, not against it. We should plan intelligently to get the right development in the right places, while protecting the things that make Sussex special. We need planning reform and a land use strategy that promotes brownfield development first, abolishes the Standard Method for setting housing targets, puts local voices at its heart, protects mature trees and wildlife habitats and supports nature recovery.

Development is not the only issue we have raised with our newly elected representatives. We also want Sussex MPs to prioritise policies that tackle climate breakdown by committing to renewable energy sources, such as rooftop solar, ending reliance on fossil fuels and opposing airport and road expansion. We also believe Sussex will need support to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

It is a step in the right direction that the new Government has pushed back plans for the A27 bypass. However, we believe the Arundel bypass should be consigned to the rubbish bin for good rather than just deferred. This would allow policy makers to focus on making smaller changes which can alleviate congestion without threatening valuable habitats.

The final ask we have put forward to MPs is about protecting nature and natural landscapes. We want our representatives to back policies which support nature-friendly farming and will ensure proper funding and protection for National Landscapes.

To help everyone raise the countryside issues which matter to them, we have launched a tool which allows anyone in Sussex to contact their newly elected MP. The tool includes draft text which can be personalised to allow each letter writer to highlight their own countryside priorities.

Try it at actionnetwork.org/letters/contact-your-new-mp.