F · Set aside: location finding imported from an adjoining recent permission
tier 2 settlement
“Henfield is a ‘tier 2 settlement’”
Five market houses on two fields just outside Henfield's built-up area boundary, next to a site where 191 homes were allowed on appeal. Allowed. The scheme conflicts with the local plan and the Henfield NP. But Horsham has 1.7 years' supply, and S5(j) supports the development. S6 NP protection did not apply because the NP was made on 23 June 2021, more than five years before the decision, and its housing requirement was no longer credible. The Council's own 2025 advice note, which drops the allocation requirement, also weighed "heavily" in favour.
Tier 2 ("reasonable public transport services") plus a bare proximity statement ("close to High Street services, the primary school, and bus stops") is the whole location finding; no footway, lighting or frequency facts; allowed under S5(1)(j). The sentence is copied verbatim from the adjoining 191-home decision 3376143 ¶11, which the appellant attached to its final comments. Application file read 1 Oct 2026 (see appeals-review/site-context-henfield-aston-clinton.md): no Transport Statement; WSCC Highways made no site visit ("DATE OF SITE VISIT: n/a") and gave advice only because Furners Lane is a private road; neither the delegated report nor the Council's appeal statement mentions accessibility, footways, lighting, buses or walking; the applicant's Planning Statement puts the same bus stops at 358 m and at about 900 m. On the ground the village centre is about 450–520 m away along a lit High Street with a half-hourly bus, which probably carries the finding, but nobody tested it. Set aside (code H, 1 Oct 2026): on the decision text this is code A, but the location finding was not made on the tier; it was imported from the adjoining, recent and undelivered 191-home permission (3376143, decided 22 May 2026 under the 2024 Framework for a different site, Charlwood Drive, with a Transport Assessment used for traffic, secured crossings and a pedestrian link), and this site's accessibility rides on that consent. In the register this counts as an unusual case set aside from the count: the location finding was imported from an adjoining recent, undelivered permission rather than made on the tier.
Decision on the Planning Inspectorate appeals service · full decision note · letter pins-corpus/6007104.txt