Notes from Cllr Rex Whittaker, January 2026

Firstly a very happy New Year to everyone. We’re only at the end of week three of the new calendar year, but already so much has happened.

GOVERNMENT BUDGET
Late November saw the Chancellor deliver her second budget when, given all the pre-budget hype and media frenzy, the actual event turned out to be much quieter. Freezing of tax thresholds extended to 2030 continues to place more people into fiscal drag.

The big ‘elephant in the room’ were the announcements about changes to business rate revaluations. There will be some big winners here – but also big losers as the process of reversing the pandemic discounts starts to unwind from April this year.

Already the pub and licensing industry lobby has been successful in obtaining early concessions, and the pressure will now be on the Treasury to follow suit with other hospitality facilities. Small retail outlets should benefit, whilst larger retail stores and business premises will be paying substantially more.

At least before Christmas the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) reduced the interest base rate again to 3.75 % for the sixth time in eighteen months, and this should feed through into the mortgage and loans market to help improve deals and economic activity. The next MPC meeting date is set for 5 February. It is to be hoped that inflation and interest rates can continue to nudge down as 2026 progresses.

COUNCIL BUDGET SETTING
Our main Three Tier councils of West Sussex County, Mid Sussex District, and East Grinstead Town are all well advanced in their lengthy budget-setting process for the April 2026/27 financial year. Their final drafts and consultations were slightly delayed because of the lateness of the Chancellor budget announcements. Council meetings to agree budgets are all due in the next five weeks.

However in particular the County and District councils continue to suffer significant inflationary cost pressures, particularly with Adult & Children’s Social services, as well as increasing provision for the homeless.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION (LGR)
The Government’s final full public consultation for Sussex LGR ended on 11 January. After an extraordinarily exhaustive process throughout 2025, the final Government Ministerial decision is expected in March this year. All eight County / Borough / District Councils in West Sussex voted for the two unitary future council option. If this was agreed then it would see the existing councils of Crawley, Horsham, and Mid Sussex merge into one Northern Unitary Authority.

East Sussex and Brighton councils however were much more divided on their preferred options, and so it will be very intriguing – and nerve wracking–  to see which option the Government dictate.

Whichever options are selected, all new Unitary councils must be legally operational by April 2028. Meanwhile Sussex Mayoral elections have been delayed until May 2027.

PLANNING
The much heralded Planning & Infrastructure Bill finally received Royal Assent on 19 December 2025 and is now law.

I have previously commented upon its likely large scale structural changes to the planning system nationally. This will fast track larger projects, especially for infrastructure. It will also be a vehicle to fast track the twelve key locations for a new generation of new towns and major urban expansions focusing on accelerating housing and economic growth. None of these locations are in the Sussex area.

In early January the first ‘child of the Infrastructure Bill ‘ was seen when a whole new National Planning Policy Framework was published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). This is currently out for an eight-week public consultation. However rather than amending the well-established existing National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) document, the new version is essentially a whole new document. Initial views are that it is more developer-friendly and will add further to the Government’s drive for a faster, more nimble planning system and further impetus to economic growth and activity. It is expected that this new document will be operational by May this year.

Some good news in the period is that the Mid Sussex District Council Draft new Local Plan will resume its Independent Public Examination on 25 February after a new Inspector – Jonathan Bore was appointed by the Planning Inspectorate. Examination is scheduled for three weeks, and it is hoped that a final plan can be adopted by Autumn this year to once again give MSDC the surety of having a legally enforceable rolling 5-year land supply for housing and employment uses.

SOUTH EAST WATER
Finally I need to mention the fallout from the South East Water (SEW) debacle. The whole of East Grinstead being cut off for four whole days was a systematic failure of the SEW Infrastructure Network. In the past few years certain areas of the town have had individual supply issues – mainly due to local water main repairs and upgrades. I have to pay a big tribute to our Constituency MP Mims Davies, who was working flat out throughout this awful period and with her social media postings, hourly updates, video updates, meetings with SEW Executives and briefings from DEFRA  –all over a fraught weekend. She also coordinated the water collection station set ups which thankfully worked well.

Rex Whittaker
23 January 2026