‘Proposal only, but plan will happen’

I attended the recent exhibition in the Littlehampton United Church hall on the evolvement of the plan. I didn’t learn much on this matter that we hadn’t already known from your many features.

What appalled me, though, was that what a hugely bureaucratic affair the plan is, with literally hundreds of inter-related sub-plans and reports which must be costing us, the taxpayer, millions in time and effort.

And it’s mostly red tape. For instance, it has been suggested that the Fitzalan Road extension should be in place before new housing starts. I learned that there is a complex formula, legally enshrined, that would enable the developers to avoid that until quite some time into the project, by using the existing roads through the recent development in that area.

Building will not be starting until at least 2014 and housing should thus be to a raft of new regulations that become effective in 2015. Nothing seems particularly innovative or long term future-focused about this plan.

I think we taxpayers need to let Arun District and West Sussex County councils know that, having reluctantly accepted that this has got to happen, our demand is that it must be a bold, innovative and a highly environmentally sustainable project, conceptually well ahead of known future legislation.

I understood from the exhibition that rain and waste water handling would be to the very latest techniques, particularly for this flood-prone area, but I would also like to see every new house have solar and PV panels, grey water re-use and the street plan laid out to the latest Dutch-originated traffic management idea, “woonerfs”, whereby motorists, cyclists and pedestrians are integrated for much reduced safety concerns.

Developers will resist on the grounds of higher costs deterring buyers, but such costs will be minimal if planned to be incorporated from the very start and, surely, would in fact attract buyers. And it would bring Littlehampton much more of the prestige of some recent design triumphs.

John Morris

Maltravers Drive

Littlehampton