Comment

Draft Interim Policy Statement for Housing Development

Representation ID: 3580

Received: 10/07/2020

Respondent: Mr Alan Aldridge

Representation Summary:

Housing target is nonsense when houses are used as second homes and buy to lets. Make better use of existing housing stock instead of increasing housing target.

No new building can be considered in isolation of A27. Only solution is northern bypass.

Full text:

You say that new housing should now be built at 628 pa instead of 435 pa. As far as I can discern from the alphabet soup of abbreviations in your policy statement, this is ultimately a central government demand?

Just two comments. Firstly, any increased new-build target in the Chichester area is a nonsense when so many houses and flats are used as second homes and buy-to-lets. The ultimate absurdity is a block of appartments on the old pub site in East Wittering which right now is fronted by a huge billboard advertising a potential 29,000 pounds pa rental return to investors. So much for affordable housing or starter homes. Don't increase the new-build target: make better use of the existing stock.

Secondly, no new building in the area can be considered in isolation from the question of the A27. It's just daft to cram more and more housing where its occupoants will have to use or cross the present defensive moat that is the A27 Chichester bypass. The only solution that makes any sense at all is a straight-through northern bypass with no intermediate junctions whatsoever. That would entirely separate though traffic from local traffic and money that would otherwise be spent on intermediate junctions could be applied to imaginative lanscaping and noise suppression to render through traffic largely invisible and inaudible to the northern suburbs, the Goodwood Estste, and the South Downs.