Comment

Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach 2016-2035

Representation ID: 1374

Received: 06/02/2019

Respondent: Rev. John-Henry Bowden

Representation Summary:

Housing provision should be allocated as a priority to occupiers with a provable local need; and prohibitive financial penalties need to be imposed on "second homes", of which the residents actually reside elsewhere for most of the year.

Full text:

There is no mention (that I can find) in any of policies S4, S5, or S6, or anywhere else in the plan, of two imperatives in the District's provision of housing:
1. the need to ensure that the housing provision proposed meets the needs first and foremost of local people with a provable link to the District of a family or employment nature (and especially public-service employment such as teachers, police and health-workers), before it is made available to the wider housing market in the SE of England. What we need is local houses for local people, and in particular local houses for the next generation of local people emerging from university or job-training and desiring to set up home in their home area.

2.A way to inhibit the purchase of housing in this tourist area for use a second home, for people who are actually and normally resident elsewhere, e.g. London. There is no mention made, for instance, of any proposal to impose punitive council tax on residential properties which are only in occupation for a small number of weeks of the year. Other Council Authorities in tourist areas where this has become a real blight, and made it impossible for young, local people to set up home in their local area, have taken steps to control this. Chichester should do the same.