£1.2bn Sussex housing scheme gets planning nod

Outline planning has been granted for a Homes England-backed scheme to deliver up to 3,500 homes on a 176ha site in Sussex.

Mid-Sussex district council gave the £1.2bn Northern Arc development in Burgess Hill the green light last Friday, as the government’s housing delivery agency appointed consultant Aecom to support the multi-disciplinary project.

The scheme will also feature three schools and a community centre as part of a £40m infrastructure package.

The council said 30% of the proposed housing would be classed as affordable, with three quarters of that figure offered as social or affordable rent, with the rest going for intermediate housing.

Details of contractors have yet to be confirmed, but a spokesperson for the district council said work on the first of four phases on the scheme would begin sometime in the 2020/21 financial year, delivering 851 new homes in the eastern and western parts of the site.

Residents are due to move into the first lot of new homes by 2026.

The final phase will be started in 2031/32, with occupation expected two years later.

Homes England acquired land at the site last year to bring forward early release of the first phases of new homes alongside investing in infrastructure to unlock the site for development.

The agency’s first tender for infrastructure works is currently being finalised and a Homes England spokesman said it had recently issued a second one.

Parcels of land will then be sold off to developers to build the homes. The first phase, called Freeks Farm, is owned by Countryside Properties, which recently submitted a reserved matters application, a decision on which is expected before the end of this year.

Ken Glendinning, head of strategic land at Homes England, said: “Burgess Hill is a great example of how we’re unlocking complex stalled sites to build more homes more quickly where they are most needed.”

Aecom’s services will include project management, design, planning, landscape, economics and engagement.