Traffic jams and flooding are North Bersted residents' major concerns over housing plans

The congestion on the roads and the soggy state of the ground featured high on the list of concerns among those at the first day of Arun District Council's touring caravan.

Some 50 people had visited the site in the Jubilee Community Centre grounds on Monday, February 16, with an hour left to go. The first eager visitor was waiting for the caravan to open at 7.30am.

A further three quickly followed him through the door before 8am. Attendance by 10am totalled 24 individuals.

A further flurry caused a small queue to form at the entrance as the final hour began before the caravan's departure at 3pm.

Visitors were greeted with displays which explained farmland off Chalcraft Lane had been highlighted by Arun District Council as a potential site for 2,500 homes.

It is part of the council's favoured option for large-scale housing development around the district by 2026, but the final decision has yet to be taken.

It will then have to be backed by a government inspector at an inquiry.

Among those who went along to the roadshow was Don Freezer, of Queensfield East, West Meads.

He said: "The big thing is the number of houses being built to destroy the area. There's also the idiocy of building houses on a floodplain.

"We've just had the national body of insurers saying any houses on a floodplain will not be insurable. The housing will take farmland away. Who is going to feed us? It will mean importing more food."

Chalcraft Lane resident Lynette Gill lives in a cottage on the farmland which is set to be developed.

"There has to be more employment before we have more houses," she said.

"Otherwise, where are the people who have enough money to afford a mortgage going to come from?

"We also need the jobs to stop more people having to travel elsewhere to get work. To put a new road in as part of the development will not help. We will still be worse off because we will have all the people in the new houses with their cars."

She quoted a morning during the recent bad weather when an accident at Lagness combined with closure of the A29 for safety reasons to create early-morning chaos around Bognor. It took her 90 minutes to get to work in Chichester.

Arun officers Robert Davidson and Tracey Flitcroft, from the council's

planning policy team, were on duty in the caravan for its final hours.

Mr Davidson said: "Highways is the major issue that people have been raising with us because there is bad congestion in the road along here in the mornings.

"Flooding is another major concern because site six is under water."

Itinerary

The mobile roadshow will next be in the Bognor area at Yapton Village Hall on March 2.

It will be at Aldingbourne Sports and Social Centre on March 17, Eastergate Village Hall on March 18 and Barnham railway station car park on March 23.

Details of the land use proposals can also be found on the website www.arun.gov.uk under options for growth.

The consultation closes on April 2.

Have your say

A meeting next month will give Bersted's residents the opportunity to tell their parish councillors what they think about the latest housing plans.

The area's annual electors' meeting, to be held on March 3, will focus on the proposals for 2,500 homes and linked development north of Chalcraft Lane.

It will take place at 6.30pm at the Jubilee Community Centre off Chalcraft Lane, North Bersted. The outcome of the meeting has to be considered by the parish council at its meeting the following week, though it is not binding on the members.

Parish council clerk Michael Johnson said: "We want to hear what local people think about the housing proposals.

"It will enable the parish council members to know that, whatever action they take, it has the backing of their residents."

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