SussexWorld readers add their support to our campaign against unsustainable development

The campaign, launched last week, calls for stronger protection for our greenfield sites and greater powers for councils to determine their own housing needs and annual targets.

Readers on our Facebook pages added their comments and many spoke in support of our campaign.

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Building on brownfield land instead of green spaces and better infrastructure were among the points raised.

Christian Mark Bode, writing on the Mid Sussex Times page, said: “This is highly complex. We need more housing, especially social housing. Challenge is where.

“Not convinced enough is done in terms of brownfield sites or redeveloping old stock locations i.e knocking down low density and replacing with higher density more efficient.

“Developers though need to contribute more for infrastructure for any development no matter size.

“This should also be based on greater charges for greenfield development.”

John Elliott, writing on the Chichester Observer page, said: “If we keep building, it doesn’t matter who owns the houses or not, the biodiversity of the area will suffer and that needs to be protected for all our futures.

“Best solution is to put a halt on peple buying second homes and pricing people out the market.”

Housing targets were the focus of Glen Hewlett’s comment on the Midhurst and Petworth Observer page.

He said: “Perhaps the campaign should be against developers ‘land banking’? Arun for example are seen as failing in the last three years – they have ‘only’ delivered 65 per cent of their housing target yet applications for over 14,000 houses have been approved yet not built.

“Because we are seen as failing the government’s (in London) presumption in Arun is for development when it comes to appeals.”

Some people, like Eloise Turner, writing on the Eastbourne Herald page, acknowledged that ‘people need to live somewhere’.

But in response, Catherine Tonge wrote: “People also need food, fresh water, protection from flooding and clean air.

“Every greenfield development threatens all those things, as well as creating unsustainable out of town car-dependent ghettos.

“There are plenty of derelict sites within urban areas to build houses.

“Many of these already have planning permission but haven’t been developed because there’s more profit to be made from building on greenfield sites.”

Asked by one reader where people should live, Chris Haslett, writing on the Bexhill Observer page, said: “Not on greenfields or woodlands or open countryside, of which there is less and less in this part of the world.

“Use brownfield sites and convert empty buildings.”

Sean Towers, writing on Crawley Observer, page, said the housing crisis was a ‘population issue’.

“You cannot hope to match supply with demand if the demand is unlimited,” he said.

He called for perpetual means testing for social housing to ensure those in most need were housed.

He added: “Fix the system before building more – when you have a bucket full of holes you shouldn’t just keep pouring more water in.”

Finally, Brian Silk, on the Worthing Herald page, summed up the issue in lyrical form.

He said: “To quote Joni Mitchell, ‘Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot’.

“We may need more housing but we need to breathe as well.”

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