Bersted fury over another 1,500 new houses

The parish council members have agreed unanimously to urge Arun District Council representatives to attend their next meeting on September 10.

The call for explanations has gone to Cllr Ricky Bower, who has ultimate responsibility for Arun's planning policies, and council head of planning services Howard Cheadle.

Bersted's residents are also being encouraged to go along to the 7pm session to hear why the area has again been singled out to accommodate some 4,000 newcomers. The confrontation will take place before the parish council's normal monthly meeting at its usual venue of the Jubilee Community Centre.

All 14 parish councillors were present at a special meeting on Tuesdayto state their anger about the intentions to earmark a site, known officially as west of Bersted, for the large scale development from 2016.

Arun envisages the area north of Chalcraft Lane being suitable for the new settlement as well as 30,000sq m of industrial space to provide jobs.

The district council also wants the scheme to include a Chalcraft Lane relief road to connect the B2166 Lower Bognor Road to the A259 Chichester Road.

A report in the Observer two weeks ago about Arun's intentions was the first the parish councillors were aware of them.

Cllr Patrick Hastings said: 'I am appalled at the way this has been slid out in public. Where is the idea of partnership in this?

'The contempt which has been shown towards this council is unspeakable. I have no words for it.'

Cllr Martin Lury said: 'This area is seen as an easy touch. It's about keeping the new housing in Bersted again. This development will not be good for the community.

'I can't understand the logic of keep putting development off the A259. At peak times, the road can't cope with the volume of traffic now.

'To have more houses with cars going on to that road will be absolutely disastrous. You will have the same problem going to Chichester in the morning except it will take an hour and a half rather than an hour.'

Cllr Simon McDougall commented: 'They are picking on the wrong site and for the wrong reasons.

'These extra houses raise the nightmare scenario that a lot of the fields between Bersted and Chichester will be built over. There's the real danger of coalesce.

'You can't keep building on top of the A259 unless you radically overhaul it. The situation is frightening. You are going to have two or three cars for each of the 1,500 homes. How are they going to travel anywhere?'

District councillor Sylvia Olliver, speaking during the meeting's public session, said: 'This is all about saturating Bersted with housing.

'We should not be suffering like this. This is appalling. It's not just one step too many, it's many steps too many. We are fed up with all this. It's going to be nothing but concrete around Bersted soon.'

She warned the development could spread to Aldwick and over to the Sefter Road area once the fields around Lower Bognor Road were built on.

Instead of west of Bersted, the parish councillors argued the best site for the new housing would be Ford, where a new settlement could be created. This would enable all the services needed to cope with thousands of residents to be provided from the start.

Cllr McDougall said this was in contrast to North Bersted where services were at full stretch coping with existing residents because developments in the 70s and 80s were built without any play areas or doctors' surgeries. A further 650 homes are about to built in North Bersted in a development which the parish council fought all the way to the High Court in London.