An open residents meeting was held on 15th December 2025, where the Save Jane Austen Country/A31 Alliance campaign explained the issues with the East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) Emerging Local Plan 2025-2043. The plan proposes up to 20,000 new houses across East Hampshire, with up to 12,000 of these concentrated along the A31 corridor. This includes sites for up to 153 new houses within Froyle itself.

The last consultation on EHDC’s plan took place in early 2024, before these new housing targets were imposed (by central government), and before the production of a new Land Availability Assessment (LAA) that identifies 155 new sites and around 8,000 additional proposed homes across East Hampshire. Other local authorities, faced with similar significant changes to their local plans, have re-consulted with the public, but EHDC does not propose to. Furthermore, EHDC will disappear in April 2028 when a new larger “Unitary Authority” is formed, likely to include much of North Hampshire, providing more land for better and more sustainable planning of new housing development.

There is a risk that EHDC’s legacy is a Local Plan that “locks in” up to 20,000 new homes in unsustainable, inappropriate locations, and would destroy the rural character of the entire A31 corridor from Bentley to Ropley.

Residents are being asked to demand that EHDC re-runs its Regulation 18 consultation on its Emerging Local Plan, to enable the public to provide feedback on the doubled housing targets, the 155 new sites, the lack of infrastructure planning, and potential environmental damage.

This (A31A presentation 20251215) is the presentation from the public meeting.

How you can help:

• email or write to our EHDC district councillor, Tony Costigan, and the leader of EHDC, Richard Millard – full details on how to do this are in this downloadable pdf. Froyle - call to action
• sign the petition at www.savejaneaustencountry.org

For further questions, please contact Bruce Powell bruce.powell@rok-box.com