Latest from Homes England on 3,000 housing development West of Ifield

Homes England has given notice to Ifield Golf Club that it will need to leave its site by April, 2027 – the year of the club’s centenary.

In August, the government’s housing agency submitted a planning application to Horsham District Council for 3,000 homes West of Ifield, on land which includes the golf course.

The plans are due to be considered by the council in the spring, though no exact date has yet been set.

Charlotte O’Mahony, project director, said: “Homes England has been clear throughout our engagement over the last six years that closure of Ifield Golf Course would be necessary to deliver essential local infrastructure.

“The notice served – far longer than the six months required – gives the club and its members the time needed to plan for the future.

“Securing this land enables the earliest possible delivery of essential infrastructure, a new secondary school and new homes for local residents by 2029, alongside extensive green spaces and sports facilities.

“We will continue to work with the community and stakeholders to ensure we deliver these commitments.”

Homes England has owned the golf course land since 2020, with the club agreeing to a five-year lease, which was renewed earlier this year.

Under the National Planning Policy Framework, Homes England does not have to replace the golf course. Instead, ‘alternative sports and recreation provision’ is allowed.

This will include investment to improve facilities and capacity at Tilgate Golf Course, in Crawley, and Rookwood Golf Course, in Horsham, and a leisure centre with swimming pool will be built.

As well as the leisure centre, the plans for the site include a secondary school – which is expected to open in September, 2029 – a primary school and health centre.

The Department for Education (DfE) will be delivering the secondary school, having struck an agreement with Homes England in 2017 that land for the build would be transferred. A spokesman said the DfE was ‘committed to working up their plans in detail’.

Another piece of land will be transferred to West Sussex County Council for the primary school, along with a financial contribution.

With resources tight for the NHS, Homes England will build the health centre, just as is being done at Brookleigh, in Burgess Hill.

All this, of course, relies on planning permission being granted by Horsham District Council.

If it is, a S106 legal agreement between the two will limit how many homes can be built before things like the schools and health centre are provided.

Elsewhere in the overall development, assurances have been restated that there are no plans to build on Ifield Brook Meadows. But the idea of placing foot/cycle paths across the meadows has raised concerns.

A spokesman described plans to bring in a management company to take care of the much-loved area. He said: “Once we have planning [permission], there are a number of people who would like to take over the management of that.

“These people won’t really invest time in discussing it before there’s planning certainty. But as soon as we have [that], we’ll be able to start discussions with who will take on Ifield Brook Meadows.”

As for the local roads, there has been vocal concern about how traffic from 3,000 homes would impact routes around Ifield, especially given the plan to close off part of Rusper Road.

Doing so will mean people won’t be able to drive straight to Rusper from Ifield and would, instead, have to use Charlwood Road and cross the new development via the planned link road.

Homes England will be required to monitor the impact on the roads ‘for a significant period of time’. If problems arise, the agency will be on the hook for any improvements needed.

This is unlikely to reassure the many people who have filed objections to the planning application, citing traffic as one of their major concerns.

One criticism aimed at Homes England was the submission of the ‘speculative’ planning application – something the agency previously said would not happen.

But this was before water neutrality delayed the planning system – something outside of their control.

The spokesman said that, if the application had not been submitted now, then they would not have been able to build a secondary school.

Looking further into the future, the declaration that a total of 10,000 homes could be built is one that Homes England wishes in hindsight had never been made.

The agency does not own the land south of the West of Ifield site and, even if it did manage to buy it later down the line, it could be decades before anything was be built.

Any decisions would rely on yet another Local Plan and the views of a future unitary authority containing both Horsham and Crawley that is yet to be created.

The spokesman was of the opinion that the two towns being part of the same authority would ‘remove any arguments about [West of Ifield] being on the boundary between the two’.