The Council should look to optimise housing delivery in parts of the district which are not affected by the constraints of the A27 and have the ability to assist in addressing other issues (e.g. meeting unmet need from the part of the district that falls within the South Downs National Park). As such, we consider it essential for the North of Plan Area to make a more significant contribution towards housing supply.

Policy H1 identifies a housing requirement of 10,350 new homes across the plan period. Based on the components part of this policy, it is expected that a total of 10,359 new homes will be delivered. We consider that this buffer provides a lack of flexibility especially as the overall housing requirement is expressed as a minimum within Policy H1.