Chichester housing development plans ‘need to be reviewed’

Letter from: Richard Weavis, The Avenue, Hambrook
The land West of Chichester under threat from the housing development.


Picture by Louise Adams C130350-2 Chi Local Plan ENGSUS00120131203144717The land West of Chichester under threat from the housing development.


Picture by Louise Adams C130350-2 Chi Local Plan ENGSUS00120131203144717
The land West of Chichester under threat from the housing development. Picture by Louise Adams C130350-2 Chi Local Plan ENGSUS00120131203144717

I am writing in response to councillor Eileen Lintill’s article (Observer, February 27) regarding the council’s proposed delay in their submission of the local plan for government examination.

This has obviously caused concern with many residents and I would therefore offer two alternatives to points raised by councillor Lintill.

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All figures in this letter are approximate and used to make a point.

Firstly, there is a clause in the Government’s ‘National Planning Policy Framework’ that states there is a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ at the heart of the framework.

This basically implies that providing a reasonable solution can be found to any problem then development should be approved.

The review court is very quick to pick up on this when overturning local planning refusals. I therefore think that the council could use this same rule and submit the local plan by the current due date on the reasonable assumption that all of the problems currently being discussed with the various external agencies will be satisfactorily resolved during the examination period, or the five year review period.

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Secondly, councillor Lintill talks of ‘much-needed housing but without qualifying how much and what type of housing is actually needed in the district.

At the demand of the Government our council is proposing to build approximately 12,350 houses over the 15-year life of the approved local plan. However if we look at what is actually needed for the district we arrive at a substantially different figure.

At present, according to latest figures, there are approximately 120,000 people living in the district.

The Office for National Statistics projects a population increase of approximately eight per cent in the South East over the life of the local plan, thereby giving an increase figure of say 9,600 people locally.

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There are currently around 57,000 households in the district. So we can see that each household has 2.1 occupants. Therefore if we take the projected population increase of 9,600 people and divide this by 2.1 we see that we will actually require 4,571 new households.

The council has said that of the 100 per cent of new housing proposed, 65 per cent will be for ‘market sale’, in other words for those who want to move into the district, and 35 per cent for affordable housing – this 35 per cent very interestingly gives a figure of just over 4,200 affordable houses. So, if we only build the say 4,571 affordable houses we will cater for the actual need of our young people.

Just think of the difference this would make to all of the problems currently being encountered, not least flooding and loss of wildlife habit, and perhaps most importantly, how does all of this Government imposed unnecessary housing, with all the problems it brings, square with the need to tackle climate change?