The mood was buoyant at Labour HQ early last Friday morning as the scale of their victory became apparent.

But the light of the new day also brought a stark realisation: Sir Keir Starmer and his team now lead the country, and they’re the ones who have to make the decisions.

One of their first announcements was to confirm housing targets, a contentious subject in East Hampshire given the numbers earmarked around Alton.

So the district council have been quick to give their two cents, with EHDC’s leader penning an open letter to the government to rethink its figures.

Its release follows a blow for the council as a top planning lawyer has told EHDC that it cannot expect a reduction in housing targets even though 57 per cent district is within the national park. A King’s Counsel has warned that failing to meet the government’s housing figures of nearly 11,000 new homes before 2040 could be “catastrophic”.

Cllr Millard has challenged the government to rethink the numbers in the letter to Angela Rayner MP, deputy prime minister, and secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.

It urges the government to address the planning laws that place the greater burden of development on a small part of the district – namely the part of East Hampshire outside the South Downs National Park boundary. It reads:

“Let me first congratulate you (Angela Rayner) on your election victory and wish you success in your term in office. However, now is the time to wake up and smell the coffee.

“No doubt you will have many priorities to address in your first days in government but chief among them must be the unfair and inequitable housing targets that have placed such a burden on East Hampshire. 

“In this open letter I am calling on your new government to reconsider the imprecise and impractical planning regulations that are failing the people of this district. 

And I am considering pausing our Local Plan until we get a clear answer to these issues and the details of your housing plans. We cannot work with fairy tales and an absence of information. 

“In Rachel Reeves MP’s first speech as Chancellor she referred to urgent changes to the NPPF and the return of mandatory targets. 

“We agree that planning is an important matter and we support the prioritisation of brownfield over greenfield sites, unfortunately there are very few brownfield sites which haven’t been developed in the district.

“However, we must have clarity on the national policy changes and mandatory housing targets. East Hampshire’s housing targets, as determined by the standard methodology, show we must identify sites for almost 11,000 homes by 2040. 

“But those calculations take no account of the fact that 57 per cent of the district is inside the South Downs National Park, an area where development is restricted. That leaves the remaining 43 per cent of the district to take the lion’s share of development. 

“Inevitably that will put pressure on our highly-prized countryside and our rural towns and villages, which have already seen so much change over the past few years. 

“This is not sustainable development. It is the damage done by a blunt instrument - a planning policy that takes no view of unique local factors. 

“We will also be under pressure to accommodate homes from more densely developed neighbouring authorities that cannot expect to meet their own targets, such as Portsmouth and Havant. 

“East Hampshire has been affected by the constant unknowns associated with housing numbers. The introduction of the standard method in 2018 was meant to make it easier for local planning authorities to produce local plans without the complexities of calculating housing needs.  

“But the current standard method simply does not work in places like East Hampshire, where there is more than one local planning authority. It is our view that housing figures for East Hampshire should be amended to account for the huge areas of national park land. 

“We have engaged one of the country’s top planning lawyers on this question and he has confirmed to us that, as the law stands currently, we must meet the housing targets we have been set or risk the failure of our Local Plan at examination. 

“If that is so, then our last hope for common sense is for the Government to reconsider the planning guidance that has trapped us in this impossible position. 

“The targets derived from the standard method for calculating local housing needs are huge and unprecedented. They do not reflect East Hampshire’s geography or that a national park covers most of the district.

“They do not take into account that the national park is run by a separate local planning authority, producing a separate local plan. 

“They place the greater part of the development on to a smaller part of the district. We will face pressure to accept some of the housing allocation from neighbouring authorities that cannot meet their own targets yet we are legally bound to meet our own. 

“We have established that the current legal position takes no account of our unique circumstances – that is why we are calling on the Government to acknowledge our unique position and confirm that East Hampshire is an exception to the standard methodology of calculating housing need.”

The council instructed Paul Brown KC of Landmark Chambers to look at the district’s “unique circumstances” and advise on whether a challenge on housing numbers might be successful, as he’s an expert in all aspects of planning and environmental law, and public and local government law.

Mr Brown all but confirmed that EHDC must adhere to the figures as any Local Plan that failed to meet the government-set targets would be rejected. 

He wrote: “I consider there would be a significant risk of EHDC’s approach to the assessment of need being found legally unsound if EHDC were to proceed on the basis that the existence of the SDNP was itself a reason for departing from the standard methodology. 

“In my view, it is far from certain that a Local Plan Examiner would conclude that any such departure by EHDC was justified or sound.”

No Local Plan would mean more speculative housing applications, more uncontrolled development and less accompanying infrastructure. The council is considering its “next course of action” but the battle shows no sign of dying anytime soon, with plans for nearly 200 new homes around Four Marks & Medstead being lodged within the last couple of months.

Cllr Millard said: “We argued that the presence and impact of the national park in East Hampshire provided exceptional circumstances and that our housing figures should be reduced accordingly. 

“But a KC has confirmed there is no basis for that expectation in law. He says if we don’t meet the needs, as laid down by the Government, then our Local Plan will likely fail, causing more speculative development on our most sensitive sites. 

“This is what the law and national policy currently states. If we want a different answer then we would need a change in the law or national policy on housing.

"There are two sides to a coin and a new government with the ‘mandate of the people’ is duty-bound to listen and understand challenge.”