Save Barnham from housing

The individuals signed up to the new Barnham CARE group after its public launch and have offered to help meet its aims of gathering facts about issues such as flooding, roads, wildlife, social infrastructure such as schools and geology.

Founder and villager Neil Cranfield: "We are a voluntary, non-political group standing up for the village trying to get as much information as we can about the village. We want to set up a knowledge base to be used when developments arise.

"We are not against development as such, but we want sustainable development which takes full account of the need to protect the village environment.

"We need to show why we don't want a proposed housing estate here and what is wrong with it."

He has set up Barnham Campaign Against Reckless Development after having formed a smaller group with his neighbours on Halliford Drive to fight an adjoining housing scheme several years ago.

He was prompted to take on the community-wide campaign because of the number of developments, and rumoured developments, for which planning permission is being sought.

Hundreds of proposed homes around the village are said to be in the pipeline.

Villagers fear they will swamp the area, wreck its character

and overload its already stretched services.

The area to be covered by Barnham CARE is focused on the built-up settlement rather than the parish boundaries.

This means it stretches between Downview Road Maple Tree Nursery on Yapton Road, south to Yapton Road and north beyond the shopping centre.

Some 60 residents attended the group's initial meeting at Barnham Village Hall.

Among them were Goodacres residents Ed Couzens-Lake and Sarah Povey. They spoke about their passion for wildlife and their desire to ensure it did not suffer through excessive housing.

Mr Couzens-Lake said: "This meeting is very much about wanting people who show enthusiasm to come in and help in any way they can."

Yapton Road resident Clare Cherry said: "We need to focus on the things that are going to make a difference."

She has spoken to Barnham Parish Council and received its support for a door-to-door survey to find out residents' experiences of flooding in the past 15 years.

She was also keen to conduct a traffic survey among villagers.

County councillor Derek Whittington, who stressed he was speaking as an Eastergate resident rather than an elected member, urged the group to avoid duplicating the work carried out by parish councillors.

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