Fishbourne has an over-subscribed primary school, a well-supported community centre and playing fields but no convenience store or doctors' surgery. What it also has is the most beautiful open view to the west to the horizon where you can see wonderful sunsets which everyone can enjoy. It is imperative that this landscape be preserved.

For most everyday living, the use of a car is a necessity.

As Fishbourne is squeezed between the harbour and the A27, the only land available for potential development is Clay Lane towards Chichester or Bethwines Farm.

When a planning application for 200 dwellings was submitted for Bethwines Farm in 2008, this generated over 330 letters of objection including those from Chichester Harbour Conservancy, Fishbourne Parish Council, Bosham Association, Chichester Society, Environment Agency, Natural England. This application was withdrawn before it could be refused. Today would be no different.

Any development here would only harm the environment and would certainly not enhance the landscape and rural character of the area. Once this countryside is gone, Fishbourne would not be the attractive village it currently is and one could well be living in surburbia.

Bethwines Farm is good quality farm land and domestic food production is of strategic national importance. By building on part of it, it could seriously prejudice the viable agricultural operations of the farm and would do nothing to enhance the area's biodiversity and wildlife habitats.

Access via Blackboy Lane would be problematic due to its narrow width and, due to existing development and ditches, there is no opportunity to provide a pavement all the way down to the A259.

There would undoubtedly be a huge increase of traffic travelling down Blackboy Lane trying to join the A259, which is already very busy, with the subsequent increase of traffic through the conservation area of Fishbourne to the Tesco roundabout.

There will be increased recreational pressure on Chichester Harbour and its wildlife.

There is potential for flooding below the site and the run-off being discharged into the harbour.

Clay Lane, in comparison, is very scrubby, unattractive land with no notable outlook. It is preferable to develop poorer quality agricultural land rather than the best. To my knowledge, this land has never been used to grow crops. By developing here, most traffic will travel along Clay Lane towards Chichester, thus avoiding the Tesco roundabout and the A27.

Hopefully, this site would encourage developers to build smaller properties that are needed for first-time buyers rather than large detached homes for in-comers.

A development site is currently underway in Clay Lane nearer to Chichester and one has also been completed in Clay Lane along from its junction with Salthill Road.

I understand that a 'wildlife corridor' is proposed to the west of Chichester. Due to the current building work in Clay Lane and the Whitehouse Farm development, it would be eminently more sensible to provide this wildlife corridor to the west of Fishbourne. The link could easily be made from the top of Chichester Harbour to the South Downs National Park.

The area round Bethwines Farm has enormous diversity. Buzzards, starlings, sparrows, owls, bats, woodpeckers, deer, hedgehogs, harvest mice, slow worms, partridges are regularly seen. In contrast, I don't recall seeing any wildlife along Clay Lane.

In addition, if another road is to come into Tesco roundabout from the south west Apuldram/Donnington, I hate to think of the chaos this will cause with even more traffic travelling along the A259.