Opposition to 'industrial park' in countryside at Brinsbury Fields

Horsham District Council granted outline approval for six business units at ‘Kingswood Works’ east of Stane Street on agricultural land used by Chichester College.

A decision on a reserved matters application for appearance, layout, landscaping and scale of the six commercial buildings is pending.

Our Place, the company behind the plans, is also the developer which was promoting a new settlement up to 2,850 homes as part of HDC’s local plan review process.

According to the application the site offers a ‘unique opportunity for a quality bespoke industrial development providing a range of differing sized units within a highly landscaped environment’.

It adds: “Improvements in this micro location are likely to continue to be piecemeal and the right quality of schemes should be supported to provide a positive knock on for the location and in particular to seek businesses who can operate in collaboration with the college, as is the case for this proposal.”

BigSTAND, a campaign group set up to protect the countryside around Adversane and to stop the infilling of the green gap between Pulborough and Billingshurst, has raised strong objections to the proposals.

Julian Trumper, Chairman of BigSTAND said: “BigStand is fundamentally opposed to the prospect of developing an industrial park in the countryside at Brinsbury Fields.

"The experience at Hilland Farm, north of Billingshurst, is of great concern. Instead of providing the small units and workshops for small local businesses to thrive and employ local people, we see enormous sheds occupied by national and multinational businesses, a supermarket, petrol station and potentially a fast-food outlet.

"The most recent drawings of the Brinsbury Fields proposals, with all the traffic access for articulated lorries, suggests an outcome in line with Hilland Farm.

“If the Brinsbury Fields plans were to proceed, we will be subject to much increased traffic volumes on already stretched inadequate local roads including the A29 and the B2133.”

Campaigners say the developers’ water neutrality statement which accompanies the reserved matters application, is not properly supported by the necessary calculations and that it breaches Natural England’s advice to local authorities.

Visit www.horsham.gov.uk/planning using code DC/20/2596.