My family most strongly object to proposed demolition/removal of Chichester's bus station and depot forming an integrated bus/rail public transport hub located in South Street to be replaced by 'bus stops', making way for a misdirected, misguided, short-sighted Southern Gateway Development Scheme and initiating a 'final nail in the coffin' disincentive to use an already fragmented and broken bus service.

The revised 2023 Local Plan for Chichester and District, including new housing targets and so-called proposed 'regeneration' of the city's Southern Gateway, follow a six week consultation concluding on Friday March 17. A 'Supplementary Planning Guidance' going way back to 2017 envisaged replacing the bus station and depot with bus stops. But a lot has changed since then. COP 26 warned us that it's no longer 'business as usual'. We're facing a climate emergency. Car polluting toxic roads damage health and the natural environment, whereas public transport, cycling, walking, active travel, look to a more viable sustainable future.

Replacing the convenient rail-adjacent bus station and depot with bus stops is no 'masterplan' but a misplaced, misguided disincentive to bus travel. There is nothing 'sound' in these proposals, nothing that will meet legal, national, clean air policy tests. Refurbishing the bus station with improved amenities would make all the difference. And encourage bus use.

Joy Dennis, WSCC Cabinet member for highways and transport (Large funding boost for bus service improvements, 2nd March) says " We are working in partnership with bus companies to do all we can to try to make bus travel as attractive as possible, to help increase passenger numbers, to make it easier for people to get to essential services like shops and businesses, and to leave cars at home in favour of a more sustainable way to travel". I urge Joy Dennis to read John Templeton's letter (March 2nd) which rightly notes "Today, only half of all bus routes run to and from the bus station. This means [local] bus users have to change buses in West Street if they wish to travel anywhere by train. Those from Midhurst to Chichester are served even worse as they cannot even reach West Street but are dropped off at the Westgate roundabout. None of the new greenfield housing estates outside the city have been provided with any bus service at all, so is it any wonder almost everyone travels by car for all their local needs?" Our local 46 bus no longer stops by the former West Street Post Office but now makes a long tedious roundabout twiddle before returning to the opposite cathedral side, which doesn't make it easier for the bus travelling public and to be made even worse by a proposed 'ungreen' demolition of Chichester's existing strategically convenient integrated public bus/rail transport hub.