Horsham District 2045 Self Assessment Summary

1. Introduction

The Council gave notice of its intent to start a new-style Local Plan, known as Horsham District 2045, on 25 June 2026. Horsham District 2045 covers the entirety of Horsham District, with the exception of land located within the South Downs National Park.

The formal start date of the preparation of Horsham District 2045 is the 1 November 2026, the day following the publication of this document. Government policy expects that Councils adopt Local Plans produced in the new system within 30 months of this date.

As part of the process of developing Horsham District 2045, it is required that the Council pass 3 seperate 'gateways'. Gateway 1 is self-assessed by the Council and involves demonstrating that the Council is ready to prepare a new-Local Plan and identify the steps it has taken to date.

Regulations require that this document, known as a 'self-assessment summary' is produced that provides details of the following:

• The Local Plan timetable
• Project management and governance arrangements
• Consultation and engagement
• Local Plan content
• Strategic Environmental Assessment

Alongside this document, and as advised by government guidance, the Council has produced a readiness checker which provides further information about the work undertaken to date.

2. The Local Plan timetable

A Local Plan timetable was first published on 25 June 2026, indicating how Horsham District 2045 could be prepared in 30 months. It is published on the Council's website and will be kept updated throughout the plan's preparation.

The Council has completed all of the processes in the 'getting ready' stage of plan-preparation in the time envisaged by the published timetable. This includes undertaking a scoping consultation and a call for sites. After the publications of this self-assessment, the Council will begin work on visioning and strategy as outlined in the Local Plan timetable.

The Council recognises that it is likely to receive a significant number of comments on the two forthcoming publication consultations. The experience of the Council is that processing and analysisng a large volueme of comments can kake a significant amount of time. To ensure that this is done efficiently, the Council will be utilising AI in the future to assist with analysing comments and will strongly encourage respondents to submit comments via a central consultation portal.

Nothwithstanding mitigations such as the above, there continues to be risks that are likely to affect the ability of the Council to prepare Horsham District 2045 within 30 months. Some of the risks are identified elsewhere in this document.

3. Project management and governance arrangements

The Council recognises that good project management and governance is necessary to ensure that Horsham District 2045 progresses towards adoption. Appropriate governance, project management and programme development materials have bee, and will continue to be, prepared to support the development of Horsham District 2045. These will be reviewed and updated as the plan progresses.

Work on Horsham District 2045 will be led by the Head of Strategic Planning and Sustainability, which much of the day-to-day work undertaken by officers from the Planning Policy Team, with the assistance of other officers, including specialist landscape, heritage and ecological support and from development management, legal support and communications.

A Local Plan Project Board and regular discussions with the Cabinet Member for Planning and Infrastructure will help steer the development of Horsham District 2045 and other Council Members will be kept involved and informed during the plan's progress. This will include workshops / briefings as appropriate, together with reporting through Cabinet / Council at the relevant plan making stages.

To assist with the getting ready stage of the plan-making process, a Cabinet Member Decision was made that approved the publication of consultation material, statutory notices and this self-assessment summary. The decision further delegates authority to the Head of Strategid Planning in consultation with the Director of Place and the Cabinet Member for Planning and Infrastructure as necessary, to take such further steps as may be required to give effect to and progress the timely preparation of Horsham District 2045.

Despite being proactive in establishing governance arrangements, Horsham District Council may be dissolved as part of Local Government Reorgansiation in the period in which the Local Plan is developed. Thus, Governance arrangements may change significantly during the preparation of Horsham District 2045 in line with any enw constitutional arrangements of any successor authority. Further, there will be full Council elections in May 2027. The priorities of any future adminstration will need to be considered as part of the Lcoal Plan preparation process which may impact on project management timescale behond that point.

4. Consultation and engagement

The Scoping Consultation took place between 30 June and 28 July 2026. It asked high level questions about how respondents would like to be engaged on the preparation of Horsham District 2045, as well as questions about what matters should be addressed in Horsahm District 2045, how housing needs might be accommodated, and preferences in relation to the design and appearance of development. A summary of the Scoping Consultaiton will be publihsed in due course and the results used to inform engagement on further stages of the plan.

The most appropriate format and precise details of how Horsham District 2045 consultations will be undertaken will be refined and finalised in the lead up to the respective consultations. These will be supported by an internal communications and engagement plan to be created to manage each engagement exercise.  It is expected that a range of digital and traditional means of engagement will be used throughout the process, to ensure that as a range of views are collated from all sections of the community together with wider stakeholders.  It is intended that AI and other digital tools will be used to speed up the processing, collating and analysing of different viewpoints received.

In addition,  a call for sites exercise was undertaken between 30 June and 25August 2026 to identify potential options for growth. Given that the call for sites overlapped with the Horsham District Local Plan 2023-2040 (legacy-style Local Plan) proposed modifications consultation, which may have limited the time available for the submission of sites, the Council anticipates that it will need to undertake this exercise again so that every option is considered as part of Horsham District 2045.  This is likely to take place in early 2027 following the anticipated adoption of the submitted legacy-style Local Plan.

5. Local Plan content

In simple terms, Horsham District 2045 will look to identify development needs and identify necessary allocations and policies to ensure that these needs are met in accordance with an updated spatial strategy and to meet a stated vision.

The Council is mindful that national policy, expressed in the recently published (17 August 2026) National Planning Policy Framework, has introduced national decision making-policies on many land use planning matters.  Officers have begun undertaking a review of the policies of the legacy-style Local Plan, that is currently at examination, to take account of this change to national policy and to understand where changes to the Council’s approach on certain matters would be necessary.

Though the review of such policies has not been completed, the Council can confirm that it does not intend to produce detailed development management type policies relating to every land use and will seek to avoid introducing policies that duplicate, substantively restate or are inconsistent with national decision-making policies – principles set out in Policy PM6 of the National Planning Policy Framework.  It is therefore expected that the scope of Horsham District 2045 will be tighter than previous Local Plans produced by the Council.

The preparation of Horsham District 2045 will identify and prepare key evidence base documents that will need to be developed to support the plan’s preparation and ultimately ensure that Horsham District 2045 will be found to be sound and legally compliant.

6. Strategic Environmental Assessment

It is recognised that a Strategic Environmental Assessment will be required to identify, describe and evaluate the likely significant environmental effects that would arise through the implementation of Horsham District 2045. It will require the Council to assess reasonable alternatives that could deliver the plan’s vision and objectives.

Work has not yet begun on the Strategic Environmental Assessment. However, the process of its production is well known and understood by the Council, with such documentation being used to support the Horsham District Planning Framework (adopted in 2015) and the Horsham District Local Plan 2023 -2040, which is now in the final phase of examination.  Because of this, the Council already has current information on the district’s environmental assets and how significant environmental effects could be prevented, reduced and mitigated.  Such information will help inform the initial stages of any Strategic Environmental Assessment of Horsham District 2045.

The Council is conscious of the Government's desire to reform environmental assessment, with Environmental Outcome Reports due to be introduced and replace the existing process of Strategic Environmental Assessment by the end of 2027. It will keep updated of any transitional announcements to ensure that any new requirements are accounted for in the preparation of the Local Plan.

7. Risks

The Council will prepare Horsham District 2045 in keeping with its published timetable, which will be kept under review and updated as required. Through completing the readiness checker, it is apparent that there a number of risks that could impact upon the preparation of Horsham District 2045 and some of these are discussed below.

Firstly,  local government is being reorganised in Sussex. Though it is not clear when a decision will be made confirming boundaries of a unitary authority to which Horsham District will be located within, nor when exactly that unitary authority will come into existence (and Horsham District Council dissolved), it is expected that the new authority will be established during the preparation of Horsham District 2045.  It is thus not possible to know the priorities of the new organisation, set governance arrangements for the whole plan preparation period or know how changes to the political and/or corporate leadership may impact on the direction of Horsham District 2045 and/or the speed of its production.

Related to the above,  as part of the wider devolution agenda, the Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority will be producing a Spatial Development Strategy to set out the strategic planning framework for the sub-region in which Horsham District lies.  Work on the Spatial Development Strategy is in its infancy and is therefore not currently in place.  However, NPPF policy HO2, paragraph 2 explains that, in such instances, local plans should establish a housing requirement, but must also take account of an emerging Spatial Development Strategy.  As the preparation of the Spatial Development Strategy progresses, it could therefore impact upon the scale of development that Horsham District 2045 will need to account for in the plan.  Further, it is unclear as to the amount of officer resource that members of the Policy Team would have to provide to feed into the preparation of the Spatial Development Strategy, which could also have implications for Horsham District 2045.

Horsham District Local Plan 2023-2040 is at examination, with a second round of Hearings having recently been held between 13and 23October 2026.  Because of this, officers within the Planning Policy Team have been mostly focused on the legacy-style Local Plan and, in accordance with corporate priorities to ensure the timely adoption of an up to date local plan, will continue to prioritise work on this plan until it is adopted – scheduled for January 2027.  Whilst resourcing of both plans has been addressed, the twin-tracking of plans, as described, in the short term unavoidably reduces the time officers will spend on preparing the Horsham District 2045, potentially impacting on the speed at which the plan will progress.

As indicated earlier in this document, the Council is aware of the Government's intent to change the processes of environmental assessment. The Government has not set out any transitional arrangements for this. The Council wishes to avoid any duplication or delay because of the mooted change, but at this stage cannot know how this would impact on plan preparation.