Decision time for 370 Angmering homes

Three separate planning applications will be discussed at a special meeting of Arun District Council’s development control committee on Thursday (May 8).

Together, they have attracted many hundreds of letters of objection, with Angmering’s three Conservative Arun councillors, Angmering Parish Council and the Save Angmering Village (SAV) campaign among the principal opponents.

Two of the schemes are detailed applications, by developers Barratt/David Wilson Homes for 139 homes and J. V. Plants, for 36 homes, both north of the rugby club, while Humber Growers, owner of the West End Nursery business south of the rugby ground, is seeking outline planning permission for up to 195 houses/flats on the nursery site.

Arun planning officers are recommending all three applications are approved in spite of the substantial opposition.

All three proposed developments are within the site earmarked for a total of 600 homes at Angmering. On Wednesday (April 30), a full meeting of Arun councillors was due to be asked to confirm the major allocation, towards an annual target of building 580 new homes, to be included in the council’s local plan, the district’s planning blueprint for the years up to 2029.

‘Join the fight’

SAV urged its supporters to join in a mass protest against the local plan housing site last night, and to also attend Thursday’s meeting in a show of strength against the three Angmering planning applications.

Arun would expect the developers to contribute millions of pounds towards infrastructure including a new primary school on a site south of the Bramley Green estate, and widening the A259 between the Station Road and Angmering bypass roundabouts to a dual carriageway.

Building the new primary school would be a priority for Arun, but the developers say that having to provide the £5m construction costs would make the housing schemes unviable, unless the need for ‘affordable’ housing was cut from 30 per cent of the homes to be built to 20 per cent.

Opponents claim the three applications are ‘premature’ and any decisions on them should be delayed until the completion of Arun’s local plan, Angmering’s own neighbourhood plan and a masterplan for the 600 homes earmarked for the village.

Other concerns raised by objectors include the impact of traffic on already busy village roads, the loss of grade 1 agricultural land on which many homes would be built, the loss of jobs from the nursery site, the increased risk of flooding and the harmful effect on countryside bordering the South Downs National Park.

Arun officers say in their report to Thursday’s meeting that the planning applications are in accordance with the masterplan for Angmering and that when detailed plans are submitted for the outline schemes, these will have to be assessed against the masterplan’s principles, too.

The development control committee meeting takes place in the New Millennium Chamber at the Manor House, Church Street, Littlehampton, at 1pm and is open to the public.