The government claims its latest draft of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) will drive economic growth and modernise the planning system—but at what cost to local democracy, overstretched infrastructure, and the natural environment?

Previously, we raised the alarm that areas around our rural train stations are in peril due to a clause in the new NPPF. But let us be clear: the whole document is deeply troubling. Unless it is revised, this latest NPPF will cause irrevocable damage and destruction to our green spaces.

Many of us have experienced the terrible water issues that we have in Sussex – from polluted waters, to overflowing sewage systems, to being left without water from taps for weeks. Our water system is failing.

Shockingly, the last NPPF makes no attempt to remedy this failure. It simply calls to load yet more new builds onto sewage and water systems collapsing under strain.

Some call climate change the greatest threat that our countryside faces. The government says it has committed to fighting climate change. Yet this draft of the NPPF has no serious consideration of climate change mitigation at all.

Nor does it even come close to adequate provision of affordable housing, which we know our Sussex communities so desperately need.

And incredibly, the latest NPPF undermines the countryside itself – by removing references to both valued landscapes outside nationally designated areas, as well the countryside having intrinsic value at all.

Perhaps our biggest fear is that the NPPF will eradicate public scrutiny in planning decisions. In speeding up the housebuilding process, the government would see local democracy and examination stripped away. We will be powerless to argue against destructive development in our villages, towns and countryside.

It is critical that we tell our MPs that this NPPF is dangerous. We are calling for MPs to demand revisions to this document this summer, to call for stronger protections on local voices, water, climate change, affordable housing and environmental protections. Help us tell them now.