Chichester traffic chaos - this is what our MP and local councils must do to unlock the crisis, according to a county councillor

Hundreds of cars were trapped for hours at Portfield retail park on Tuesday, May 31. Stories gathered from the scene painted a picture of chaos: pregnant women stuck in cars, parents with vulnerable children unable to leave, and key workers who had popped out for a sandwich only to be stuck in the same spot more than five hours later.

In a powerful piece of comment, our journalist Joe Stack said the growing traffic problems in the city were being exacerbated by a failure of local leadership to control housing numbers, upgrade the existing line of the A27, and allow the Oving crossroads to be closed.

You can read his full article here: https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/opinion/traffic-chaos-is-crippling-chichester-when-will-it-end-3716948

Responding to his comments, county councillor for the Witterings, Pieter Montyn has submitted this letter to the Chichester Observer. We report his comments in full below. Do you agree with him? Any suggestion of a northern route is bound to be controversial – so please share your views with us.

He has written:

"Your correspondent in this week’s Observer puts the traffic problems on the A27 down to three causes. Housing development across our District, while described as uncontrolled, is still subject to planning permission. However, it is the case that the delay of the completion of the District Council’s Local Plan Review leads to speculative large planning applications when, by nationally imposed measures, there is an insufficient supply in the pipeline of housing land outside the protected South Downs National Park and the Chichester Harbour AONB.

"The A27 around Chichester is a three-mile local distributor road interrupted by five roundabouts, and simultaneously is part of the Strategic Route Network. Consequently, two equal traffic streams conflict. Growth in strategic traffic nationally is at least as significant a contributor to the congestion experienced by local and by longer distance users, as is local housing growth. The return to pre-Covid traffic levels demonstrates this again daily. For as long as these two traffic streams are not separated by a new bypass as proposed for Arundel, this problem will remain. The permanent closure of the Oving crossing was not so much a decision as a planning condition imposed by the Highways Agency (now Highways England) as part of the planning permission for the Shopwyke developments a decade ago.

“Today, National Highways requires another local A27 mitigation scheme to accommodate the predicted traffic growth arising from the Local Plan Review and its nationally imposed housing numbers. A scheme on that scale was shown not to be deliverable, and financial contributions by developers will only cover around half the considerable costs. Consequently, the main reason for the delay of the Local Plan is the need for the District Council to demonstrate this conundrum in detail to the Government and to arrive at a lower housing level compromise and thus less additional traffic, combined with affordable A27 mitigation measures still acceptable to Highways England. There are two serious flaws in the planning system that necessitate this approach: mitigations are only expected to deal with additional traffic due to development and not with existing congestion. Hence, if ever implemented, these will perpetuate the conflict between local and through traffic and the existing congestion. The other consequence is that meanwhile speculative development in the unprotected areas of the District can continue.

“The author of your article blames local leadership and politicians, but is it their fault? Decades of impasse at high level to deal with this stretch of national highway has led to the lack of capacity to accommodate local and national traffic growth on the A27, that for years has caused congestion, unacceptable accident rates, and rat running through the City, that is now holding up the Local Plan, and thus is fueling speculative housing development.

“Many will remember that, when a major public consultation of options for A27 improvements was scheduled by the Highways Agency early in 2016 at locations around Chichester, this was suddenly cancelled at short notice without explanation, and northern route options were withdrawn. After a cut back consultation was eventually launched in the summer, large numbers of respondents unsurprisingly rejected the options on offer and asked to see northern options back on the table. Instead of accepting the consequences of the withdrawal, Secretary of State Chris Grayling then dumbfounded the public by putting the blame on them for not agreeing to inferior and inadequate options and, equally suddenly, cancelled the scheme altogether in 2017, despite local attempts to revive it with his initial encouragement.

“So, when residents look to local leaders to expedite the Local Plan and deal with the A27 – the responsibility of Highways England - they should ask why it was that senior politicians in Westminster allowed themselves to be persuaded in 2016 to instruct Highways England to withdraw northern options, but then not to accept the consequences. Aside from the obvious traffic congestion and the damage to the public’s faith in their nationally elected representatives, the disastrous consequences are that there is no lasting improvement in sight to the A27 traffic at Chichester, that the Local Plan is not yet out of the doldrums, and that developers have a free rein. While this may be of little concern to residents in the north of Chichester District and in the AONB, this greatly affects tens of thousands of residents south of the A27 and along the A259 corridor, similar daily numbers of long-distance users of the A27, and the regional economy.

“The District Council’s Cabinet and Officers should publicly commit to unlocking matters and enlist the political support of MP Gillian Keegan and Roads Minister Baroness Vere in Whitehall. With the County Council, it should direct its efforts towards the Department for Transport and National Highways to bring forward an all-options A27 consultation. After all that has passed and to guard against any repeat of the high-level interference and events of 2016, the process must be seen to be completely transparent and be demonstrably supported throughout by our MP. Worryingly, Highways England has not learned and its current work on this scheme continues to be as opaque as it always was.

“Both the County and District Councils have similar resolutions regarding their preferred option, passed in 2018, and endorsed again at CDC in July 2021. Locally, the political will is there.”