Plans for 100 homes in Felpham withdrawn '“ for now

Barratt Homes has scrapped its proposals for 121 dwellings as part of the large site six development of 700 houses and flats.

The company has told Arun District Council it has decided not to proceed with its detailed application, which the council received last March.

However, Barratt Homes is pressing ahead with the proposals for 464 homes as part of the same development.

This detailed application is due to be considered by Arun's development control committee next Monday.

Members deferred it on April 2 because they were unhappy with several matters, including the design of some of the homes.

Barratt Homes Southampton managing director Ian Wallace said: "We have withdrawn the application for 121 homes, which is the fourth phase of our development on site six, because we wanted to focus minds on the first three phases.

"We didn't want to overload the local authority by having two major applications running alongside each other. We wanted to give more time for our larger application to be considered."

Mr Wallace said the credit crunch, the mortgage squeeze and the housing market slowdown '“ which have all been widely reported in the national media '“ made the housebuilding market difficult.

But his company was determined to go ahead with the 700 homes on site six immediately north of the Roundle Estate.

"We will be starting on the site at the earliest opportunity. The market is difficult right now but we have invested heavily on that site and we want to bring that investment forward," he said.

The company and its sister firm, David Wilson Homes, will be building the houses as well as the eastern section of the Bognor Regis northern relief road which will form the new estates' northern boundary.

A start on the development should be made in the summer, Mr Wallace said, depending on the outcome of next Monday's meeting.

Some 5m of infrastructure needed to be installed before any houses could go up. It was likely to take two years to build the relief road, he added.

Stephen Cantwell, Arun's planning officer on the Bognor regeneration task force, said: "Barratt told us it wanted to look again at the housing mixture and the layout on its deferred application as well as giving the council more time to deal with the other applications."

For the North Bersted-related development of 650 homes, he said Persimmon Homes was working towards gaining detailed planning permission for 261 of the homes.

Approval of the scheme was given by Arun's development control committee on April 16. But members left various detailed issues to be agreed between the company and council officers before the approved could be finalised.

"Persimmon has told us it is going to continue on the technical work it has to go through to obtain permission following the committee's resolution," said Mr Cantwell.

The company will review building the housing once that work had been completed.

The other developer in Bersted, Berkeley Homes, received detailed permission from the council last February for 100 homes. A detailed application for a further 181 dwellings is expected to be considered by councillors in June.

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