‘Chichester and surrounding villages are losing their identity’

Writes Kevin Mann, of Westward Close, Bosham
East Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075East Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075
East Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075

I’ve lived here for 30 years now. Over such a period all places change, for good or ill.

What I can say for Chichester and the surrounding area is where there was once a sense of community, now people no longer talk to each other.

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It has become an insular place where the wealthy build bigger homes behind higher boundaries and the poor become more and more isolated and invisible.

North Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075North Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075
North Street, Chichester. Photograph: Steve Robards/ SR2202075

In Bosham when elderly relatives die, small cottages are routinely demolished to be replaced with huge ‘designer’ glass-fronted structures.

Unsurprisingly, these new owners do not live in the village but only visit in the summer to sail, barbecue and parade their politically correct credentials.

Chichester and the surrounding villages are losing their identity as long-established families are gradually replaced by metropolitan money.

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With a weak planning department which continually rolls over for more and more unsustainable housing it is clear Chichester and the surrounding area will simply become a place of grid-locked Range Rovers with outraged yummy mummies complaining on their mobile phones.

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