West Sussex village bungalows plan: Decision made amid controversial proposal to demolish home and build new access road

The proposed application would have seen the demolition of a single-dwelling house on the land to the north of 20 to 40 Firle Road in Lancing.

Nine months after it was submitted in October 2023, the controversial application (AWDM/1473/23) was determined at a specially-dedicated public committee meeting last Thursday (July 25) at the Shoreham Centre.

This came after more than 200 objections were submitted – including by the Sussex Wildlife Trust, which concluded that the application ‘does not show how it will acceptably compensate’ for the biodiversity and ecological value of the site.

In its decision notice, Adur District Council said the proposed development – by virtue of its ‘scale, siting, and necessary remodelling’ of the land –would ‘fail to reflect the prevailing character of the area’, including the adjacent National Park.

"It would therefore have an adverse impact upon the character of the area,” the notice added.

"The proposal therefore conflicts with guidance contained within the National Planning Policy Framework, advice within the Planning Practice Guidance and policy 15 of the Adur Local Plan 2017.

“It has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the local planning authority, including via the lack of detailed landscaping proposals that the development ensures the protection, conservation, and where possible, enhancement of biodiversity and that any adverse effects of the development upon the local wildlife site can be adequately mitigated. The proposal therefore fails to comply with policy 31 of the Adur Local Plan 2017.”

It is the latest resubmission of rejected plans to replace the property with two-storey houses. At first nine properties were proposed, before it was reduced to seven.

The updated planning statement – submitted by James Breckell Architects, on behalf of Mr Tom Middleton – noted that members of the design team in 2017 found it ‘extremely difficult to accept’ the refusal at committee and ‘dismissal at appeal’.

The applicants said they have had years to reflect, which has enabled a ‘positive and fruitful’ approach to the development of the site.

A planning document read: “The density is reduced significantly from nine units to three units.

"The built area is reduced by 65 per cent in its gross internal area. Two-storey houses have been replaced with single-storey bungalows.

"Every single minutia of advice gleaned from the committee report, inspectors decision and the 2022 committee report has been used to inform this fresh design.

"The length of the access road has been halved to reduce earth work to little more than a third of the original design. The result is a design that has used the advice given positively to bring about a benign yet architecturally rewarding group of individual and modest bungalows.

"We thank the local authority and the planning inspectorate in helping to shape what we hope is a compatible development.”

The North Lancing Action Group led successful calls for the application to be rejected once again.

A spokesperson said: “Although the seven houses have been changed to three single-story dwellings, they will be elevated to almost double-story height and will be so huge in width that they will be bigger than two Firle Road properties and gardens put together.

"Just three will take up the entire row of nine Firle Road properties they will run parallel to, and they are now positioned much further south and closer to the cliff edge to swerve another objection from the South Downs National Park.

"This means severe overlooking onto the Firle Road properties in their private bedrooms, which does not replicate North Lancing's existing street scene, where all back gardens are facing and no row of houses has a road to both its immediate north and south.”