horndeanmatters

A lot of the blog is about Housing in Horndean as this affects our community and environment, but it is worth mentioning a few bits from outside of Horndean which will help put some things into perspective and correct some urban myth…

A number of people have said the development ‘West of Waterlooville’ is being filled with bus loads of people from Birmingham, with two very authoritative statements that a Mosque is being built. Aside from perhaps having hysterical racist undertones, this is a complete myth. Winchester City Council who are the local authority for this site, and also control the affordable housing element confirm this is not the case. There is a dedicated blog for this land which is run by Jacky Wilson who works for Winchester City Council and Havant Borough Council. it is worth a look if you are after some facts on this development: www.westofwaterlooville.wordpress.com/planning-applications

We are under pressure for housing from all other areas. People will move into Horndean from outside. I did, and from Leigh Park… This was the first home I could afford after I moved out from my parents home. Equally a number of people move away from the area. The fact is that our housing growth is about the same as our own population growth, and this is about 1.5% a year. All of the adjacent planning authorities, with the exception of the South Downs National Park, have a similar rate of housing to us.

Interestingly there is fact sheet which was published by the South East England Councils Partnership and the South East Strategic Leaders Group which covers the housing need in London, and the pressure percieved on the surrounding counties. If you want to read it there is a link below. If not then the key point is that London needs to take care of its own housing need, and not the nearby counties. Click here for the London Housing Plan

At the moment we have an unprecedented number of housing applications coming in to EHDC, and a very large number in Horndean. Because of this we are very worried about our own community and understandably so. The picture is worse though at Bentley, Fourmarks, Medstead and Alton where even larger numbers of housing applications are coming in, and the communities there face the same problems with proposals to develop unsuitable sites. The good news though is that this will help to quickly satisfy the ‘five year plan’ (the need for there to be enough housing in the pipeline to fill a five year demand) and this will shortly allow us to retain our GAP status.

So, hopefully the above notes show what some of the issues and facts are outside of Horndean.