West Sussex council area

Selling Land in Horsham District

Horsham District built fewer than half the homes it needed, has no Green Belt and saw its biggest barrier to building, water neutrality, lifted in October 2025. Its new local plan is now in the final stretch of examination, with a higher housing figure than the one debated at its hearings in April 2026.

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Horsham District at a Glance

The council's submitted Local Plan describes a predominantly rural district of 530 square kilometres, of which 95 square kilometres lie in the South Downs National Park, where Horsham District Council is not the planning authority. It names Horsham as the main town and places Southwater, Billingshurst, Broadbridge Heath, Storrington and Sullington, Steyning, Henfield, Pulborough and Codmore Hill, Kilnwood Vale, Upper Beeding and Bramber in the tier below. The plan identifies two landscapes of national importance in the district, the High Weald and the South Downs.

Delivery at 44%. The council delivered 1,217 homes against a requirement of 2,776 in the Housing Delivery Test 2025.
A strategic plan from 2015. The Horsham District Planning Framework, adopted in November 2015, is still the adopted plan.
A new plan close to the finish. The Local Plan 2023 to 2040 was submitted on 26 July 2024. Main modifications raising the housing requirement to 18,712 homes were consulted on from 13 July to 24 August 2026.
No Green Belt. In 2024 councillors explored applying for Green Belt on land between Horsham and Crawley, which local reporting noted would be the first in the district. Countryside policies and built-up area boundaries do the work that Green Belt does elsewhere.
Water neutrality has gone. Natural England withdrew its position statement on 31 October 2025.

Put together, a delivery result below half, no Green Belt and a pipeline no longer held up by water give well-placed land in Horsham District several routes to planning at once.

Horsham District in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
44%
Below 75%: treated as having evidenced unmet housing need under national policy S5.
Homes built against homes needed
1,217
of 2,776 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
November 2015
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
Submitted for examination
As at July 2024.

Sources: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, MHCLG, published 17 August 2026; Local plans: monitoring progress, Planning Inspectorate, August 2026. Local plans move quickly, so always check the council's own website for the latest position.

The Local Plan 2023 to 2040: Where It Has Got To

The plan has had a long examination. Its first hearings, in December 2024, were halted, and local reporting records that the inspector at the time raised a number of concerns and suggested the plan be withdrawn. A new inspector, Jonathan Bore, restarted the examination with stage one hearings in April 2026, and his post-hearing letter of 7 May 2026 led to a set of main modifications to make the plan sound.

13 July to 24 August 2026. Consultation on the main modifications.
13 to 23 October 2026. Stage two hearings, with reserve dates set aside.
Early 2027. The council's stated aim for adoption, after the inspector's final report.

A Bigger Number, and a New Strategic Site

When the hearings resumed in April 2026, local reporting put the requirement at 17,828 homes, the district's own need plus half of Crawley's, with documents showing a shortfall of 2,398 against it. The modified requirement of 18,712 homes is made up of Horsham's own need of 14,071, half of Crawley's unmet need at 3,757, and 884 homes towards unmet need along the south coast. It is stepped: 499 homes a year in years four and five, 1,100 a year in years six to ten, and 1,601 a year from year eleven.

To meet it, the council has proposed a new strategic site at Adversane, near Billingshurst, for about 3,200 homes, of which around 1,425 would be built within the plan period. The modifications say it was chosen partly because it identifies land for a secondary school and is relatively close to Billingshurst station. It is one of 19 new sites, which local reporting puts at around 6,664 homes in all, including 500 north of Horsham, a northern cluster of 450 at Ashington and two sites at Henfield. The existing strategic allocations, Land West of Ifield, Land North West of Southwater and Land East of Billingshurst, remain.

On 16 September 2026 the inspector confirmed that the plan is being examined against the September 2023 version of national policy, because its pre-submission consultation took place before the cut-off for later versions. Once adopted, it will replace the 2015 framework as the basis for decisions.

After Water Neutrality

From September 2021, Natural England's position was that new homes supplied from the Sussex North water supply zone must not add to the water taken from the Arun Valley. The sites it protects are designated three times over, as a Special Area of Conservation, a Special Protection Area and a Ramsar site, and include Pulborough Brooks, Waltham Brooks and Amberley Wild Brooks.

Natural England withdrew that position on 31 October 2025, after Southern Water committed to cut its licence to take groundwater at Hardham from 16.44 to 13 million litres a day, a change expected to be completed by March 2026. The council has confirmed:

Water neutrality statements are no longer required with applications.
The planned Sussex North water certification scheme will not be launched.
Where permission was granted with water neutrality conditions, it will consider applications under section 73 to remove them, replacing them with a standard water efficiency condition.
New homes must still meet the optional water standard of 110 litres per person per day, under Policy 37 of the 2015 framework.

Why the Modifications Say October 2024

The covering text of the schedule of modifications refers to a legacy effect from the period "between September 2021 and October 2024" when water neutrality was in place, during which very few planning permissions were granted. Natural England's own withdrawal statement is dated 31 October 2025, and the council's water neutrality page gives the same date, so the earlier year looks like a slip in the covering text rather than a different end date. The point it makes holds either way: the neutrality years produced few permissions, which is why the new requirement starts low and rises later. For a landowner, that means the council has a strong interest in sites that can deliver homes in the next few years. If your land was looked at in those years and set aside because of water, the reason has now gone.

Unmet Need in a District Without Green Belt

A 44% result puts Horsham firmly in the group of councils whose housing shortfall counts in favour of edge-of-settlement schemes under policy S5 of the August 2026 framework. Where Green Belt covers the countryside, that route is closed to most fields; here it is not, so a paddock behind Partridge Green or a field on the edge of Billingshurst can be judged on its merits. The questions are whether the land sits hard against the village rather than out in open country, whether its roads, schools and surgery can take the numbers, and whether the homes would be built soon enough to help.

Settlement	What the plan and its modifications propose
Horsham and Broadbridge Heath	Horsham is the main town in the plan's hierarchy, with Broadbridge Heath in the tier below. About 500 more homes are proposed on land north of Horsham.
Southwater	A second-tier settlement, with Land North West of Southwater already allocated as a strategic site.
Billingshurst	Land East of Billingshurst is an existing strategic allocation, and Adversane, close to Billingshurst station, is the new proposal.
Henfield	Two new sites totalling around 641 homes are proposed.
Ashington	A northern cluster of around 450 homes is proposed.

Scale is where many edge-of-village schemes succeed or fail. A few dozen homes on the edge of a larger village is judged very differently from several hundred, and school places are a live issue here, as the choice of Adversane shows. The wording of S5, and how it applies in a district without Green Belt, is unpacked in the 2026 national planning framework guide.

Downs, Weald and River Valleys

Inside the South Downs National Park, applications go to the National Park Authority under its own local plan, and major development faces the strictest test in national policy. Land just outside the park is often judged on how it looks from the Downs above. The High Weald, the district's other nationally important landscape, sets a similarly high bar for major schemes inside it.

The Arun Valley sites are the reason water neutrality existed, and their protection still shapes ecology work on land that drains towards them. A field that runs down to a river's floodplain is not ruled out, but the houses belong on its upper part, with the wet ground kept for drainage and wildlife, as the flood risk guide describes.

The Land We Look for in Horsham District

Fields of 2 acres or more on the edge of Horsham, Southwater, Billingshurst, Henfield, Storrington, Pulborough and the larger villages.
Land that sits well against existing homes, rather than out on its own in open country.
Sites with a road frontage or a realistic way to reach one.
Land mostly in Flood Zone 1, outside the National Park and the High Weald.
Sites where water neutrality stopped an earlier approach.
Larger holdings that could form part of later phases of growth.

Many of the holdings we see in this rural district are working farms, and an option does not stop the farming. You keep grazing or cropping the fields until permission is secured and we complete at the fixed price agreed at the start, which is set above what the land is worth to you today. Every planning cost falls on us, if the application fails you owe nothing, and we contribute to your own solicitor's and land agent's fees so getting it done properly costs you nothing. How this fits around a farm business is described on our farmland page.

Questions About Land in Horsham District

Should I wait for the new plan to be adopted?

Not necessarily. With delivery at 44% and no Green Belt, a well-related site can already be put forward under national policy. The new plan matters too, and we can pursue both at once where that makes sense.

My land is near Adversane. Does the new strategic site help?

Land next to a large proposed allocation can gain from new roads, schools and services, but it can also be judged against the new site's boundaries. We look at how your land relates to the proposal on the ground.

I have a planning permission with a water neutrality condition. What now?

The council will consider applications to remove those conditions and replace them with a standard water efficiency condition. That can make a stalled permission workable again.

Does it matter whether my land is in the South Downs National Park?

Yes. Inside the park, decisions are made by the National Park Authority under its own plan, and the bar for new housing is much higher.

Why does Horsham take some of Crawley's housing?

Crawley is tightly bounded and cannot meet its own need. The modified Horsham plan includes half of Crawley's unmet need, 3,757 homes, within its total of 18,712.

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Sources

We update this page when new Housing Delivery Test results or local plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.