Felpham residents lose beach huts battle

The first of the 14 huts will be in place on the greensward next to the Culver Road car park for this summer.

This follows the go-ahead given by Arun district councillors by just two votes.

The development control committee agreed last week by eight votes to six, with three abstentions, to grant planning permission for the huts to Inspire Leisure.

The leisure operator's chief executive, John Stride, said after the meeting: "We will introduce the huts slowly, starting on the eastern side.

"We will have a few in place for this summer and move on from there. We are not going to put all 14 in at once. We will see what the response is to the first ones.

"Fourteen is the maximum number of new huts we will put there. We don't think the site will take any more."

He had told the committee that the huts were planned alongside the existing 65 huts to meet a strong demand.

The siting of the proposed huts had been designed to cause the least disruption to the layout of the site. He said no formal health and safety or highways objections had been raised to the additional huts being installed.

Five of them will form a terrace to the west, two will be next to each other towards the east, one added to an existing terrace of five huts, and the remaining five new huts in an arc at the site's eastern end.

But Culver Road resident Julian Hitchcock said: "There has been a montage distributed of what the site will look like and it's going to be a pig's ear. It's a clear case of over-development.

"The beach huts to the west are right up to a road where the traffic is doing 20mph at least.

"These huts, particularly the five to the west, are going to make a perfect hiding place for vandalism and misbehaviour."

He claimed the new huts would increase the pressure on parking in surrounding roads, such as Culver Road, as people sought to avoid using the pay and display car park next to the beach huts.

Felpham Parish Council member Cllr Graham Matthews said the position of some of the new beach huts would stop their occupiers enjoying sea views.

Committee member Cllr Elaine Stainton (Felpham West) backed the protesters. She said the new huts would be squeezed on to the greensward.

"I am concerned about the huts at the back. They are too near to the access road. It will be dangerous with children running around behind these huts and they will not have very good views. People like to sit in a hut and see the sea," she commented.

Cllr Jim Brooks (Bognor Marine) said: "I feel this is an over-development. It just looks as if a quart is being squeezed into a pint pot."

Cllr Sylvia Olliver (Bersted) stated: This looks to me like trying to put houses in peoples' back gardens. It's an over-intense development which is taking away from the pleasant seaside views there. It's about putting huts behind huts."

Cllr Ricky Bower (East Preston) agreed with the protesters but said no planning reasons existed to stop the scheme.

Arun has received 31 individual letters of objection to the proposals as well as protests from Felpham Parish Council.

The committee had already deferred the application from its December meeting for more information because of councillors' unease about the scheme.

Planning officer Jonathan Parson said the additional comments had been received from the council's parks and greenspace and stated its officers had no objection to the extra huts.

Further comments had also been made by county highways officers who were similarly satisfied with the proposals. They said highway laws existed to deal with the parking problems in and around Culver Road.

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