7.31

Over the coming years, more provision of space for nurseries, high-tech glasshouses, packhouses and reservoirs will be required; however, there will also be an increased need for ancillary development, such as: Vertical Farming Projects, Research & Development Facilities, Alternative Energy Centres, Logistics and Distribution Centres, Engineering and Technical Support Facilities.

The West Sussex Coastal Plain, with its exceptionally high winter light levels and all year round beneficial climate, is the preferred location for horticultural production in the UK.

The Horticultural Industry, concentrated around Chichester and Bognor Regis, generates annual turnover that exceeds £1billion pounds and employs more than 10,000 full time equivalent staff.

The Government has tasked Growers to grow more home grown produce, increase productivity, reduce food miles and the UK’s reliance on imported food. There is also an increasing need for space to grow plants, shrubs and trees. These aims can be achieved; however, the Horticultural and Food Industries need Local Planning Policies to be in place that enables sustainable development. To this end, more flexibility is needed in the current CDC Local Plan - Horticultural Policy to meet the needs of the Horticultural sector.

Amend text to qualify circumstances in which development is permissible outside the HDA.

The Council’s recognition that existing horticultural HDAs will be insufficient to deliver the quantum of development expected during the local plan period is welcomed.

The requirement that land within the HDA should be used first (in advance of ‘other’ land’) to accommodate all forms of new horticultural development, albeit with caveats, does lack a progressive planned approach to the delivery of the range of development and infrastructure necessary, in the right locations, to realise the potential of the industry.

The Council’s approach to HDAs correctly acknowledges the hierarchy of HDAs with Runcton HDA a focus for large scale horticultural development. The terms of the policy imply that all of the allocated land in all four HDAs would need to have been saturated before development outside any one of the HDAs would be permissible. This would fail to acknowledge the specific locational needs of the operations and businesses occupying each of the HDAs and should be amended.

The requirement for development to demonstrate why it cannot be accommodated within the HDAs fails to take into consideration that the plan itself expects that approximately two-thirds of horticultural development across the Local Plan period will need to come forward outside of HDAs. Accordingly, the Council should plan positively for this growth by taking a sequential approach to horticultural development that includes provision for associated and functionally-linked development in the right way.

Associated and functionally linked development would include elements such as R&D, storage and distribution, linked office development and processing of the food produced in the area.

Please see Savills SREBR for more details