Localism is dead

“The fear people have in villages is the great big housing estate being plonked down from above. Our reforms will make it easier for communities to say: ‘We are not going to have a big plonking housing estate landing next to the village, but we would like 10, 20, 30 extra houses and we would like them built in this way, to be built for local people.”

Arun District Council is pursuing grandiose schemes for 2,060 houses plonked in the villages of Barnham, Eastergate and Westergate, 600 in Angmering and 1,000 at West Bank, Littlehampton. Local people have repeatedly had their say, preferring lower levels of sustainable developments across the district, sharing the new housing whilst retaining the essential rural character of Sussex.

Arun also wants to plonk a new road through prime greenfield farmland at Barnham/Eastergate/Westergate, at a cost of £50m-plus. This will create massive traffic chaos and pollution, for which no cost-benefit analysis has been done by Arun and which no community in the area is supporting.

And all this is not aimed at us, the local residents. Arun’s plans are being pursued to house over 32,000 in-migrants who will come to Arun district by 2031. Build and they will come, but where will they (and we) work?

Tory dreams of localism are dead. At the 2015 elections, they will see how this is simply not sustainable for them or us and we’ll plonk them out of office. Meantime, we must fight to retain our quality of life and oppose their arrogant plans.

Ian Truin

Barnham Road

Barnham