I am a retired FRICS and have some knowledge of Housing Matters. The need for more affordable/social housing is accepted by most people who want to see a settled and fair society. How this is achieved is the issue. The current proposals achieve nothing, mainly due to how the big builders manage to manipulate Government policy to suit themselves at the expense of local needs and in this locality create problems listed as follows.

1.Flooding. Increase in surface water drainage ends up in the water meadows and harbour AONB.
2.Pollution. Most surface water drainage is polluted and I draw attention to a recent hydrocarbon spillage in Fishbourne which gravitated as always into the Millpond Water Meadows and Harbour all of which are protected areas and home to endangered species including water vole.
3.Capacity issues at Appledram Sewage Works and others. A recent Freedom of Information Act enquiry confirmed the system cannot cope with the current volume of waste and now admitted by Southern Water. On site treatments are unreliable and failure in this locality could be catastrophic.
4.Traffic. More development of the type proposed will just exacerbate current well documented problems around the A27 and local roads.

There needs to be new thinking by both Central and Local Government on where to put extra housing and stop the obsession of building on green belt and creating urban sprawl.

1.Chichester centre. Online shopping is destroying secondary/tertiary retail areas. Grasp the nettle and use these areas for apartments. Stop the influx of Charity shops the usual death knell of shopping areas. Incentivise change of use to residential. Get the Housing Associations involved with Government support.
2.Put in required infrastructure especially sewage disposal before development. This is just plain common sense.
3.Remove the rules that favour developments of more than 100 units
4.Rein in the South Downs National Park Authority. Many communities in the South Downs would welcome small pockets of affordable housing so that younger people with families can remain and ensure the survival of local primary schools, village shop, real communities. Again get the Housing Associations involved with Government support and make it less of an attraction for 2nd home owners.