Fight to stop new Wick council housing plan defeated

Concerns about the 22 dwellings planned for land in Joyce Close and Greenfields on the Wick estate were aired at Arun District Council’s development and control committee last Wednesday (October 22), but members gave the homes the thumbs-up.

Joyce Close resident David Jones told the committee he had fears regarding health and safety.

“If this goes ahead, my worry is that God forbid, if there was a major fire, a fire engine would not be able to get down to the homes. This is a real problem,” he said.

Councillors were told West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service had not raised any issues over access.

Resident Karin Ryk said she had never been in favour of the plans.

“These applications are detrimental to the ambience and character of our neighbourhood. If these go ahead, we will have a dreadful, dreadful estate. It will turn into something that is concrete and Tarmac and nothing else, no green spaces, no verges - it will be crowded and crammed. It will, in fact, be a ghetto,” she said.

Labour Ham Ward district councillor Mike Northeast also spoke on the applications.

He told the committee: “I am against what is going on. All those years ago, when it was decided urban extensions would go forward, it was done so the drastic housing need in Littlehampton could start to be tackled and equally to stop developers infilling sites with houses. Now it seems, a few years later, that is all forgotten and here we are with an ill thought out proposal to cram houses onto one of our own estates.

“I have to say, if these houses were on a private estate in a village, the residents would be supported and the proposals refused.”

For the full committee meeting report, plus the fallout from the decision, pick up a copy of today’s Littlehampton Gazette (Thursday, October 30).