Agriculture is key

My ‘myopic’ view of social and economic issues stems for a desire to see a fair, equal spread of housing within the Arun district.

Mr Hall appears to want to build everything in the Ford-Clymping-Yapton area.

The likely use of 268 acres of Ford airfield for development is not a big issue with most people, it is the destruction of 643 acres of high-quality agricultural land.

These figures are not used by myself to alarm people, they are taken from Mr Hall’s own presentation.

His accusation of ‘parochialism’ and ‘NIMBYism’ are without foundation when in the previous issue of the Observer the report on provision of 39 homes available for rent and 20 for shared ownership in a new estate off Bilsham Road underlines Yapton’s commitment to be self-sufficient in affordable housing supply.

This greatly exceeds the figure of 11 families who needed to be housed in Yapton.

If every parish were to adopt a similar stance, we would not need big, brash new towns as proposed by Mr Hall.

Is he the NIMBY, not wishing to see development in his area, so suggesting it happen elsewhere? I leave others to decide.

I suggest Mr Hall visits Ford airfield now to savour the heavily-perfumed air which I experienced two days ago when walking footpaths from Ford to Yapton in the Rodney Crescent area.

What possible incentive will attract people to live next to a sewage treatment plant opened in 1999, which still has problems eliminating unpleasant odours after 12 years of operation?

It will also open his eyes to see the scale of and importance of agricultural production in this area. Why should this be lost under a sea of concrete when it helps contain the need to make expensive imports of food?

Andy Faulkner,

Church Road, Yapton