Policy NE11 The Coast

Are these distances adequate given the now accelerating rise in sea level?

We are encouraged to see the inclusion of this policy with recognition of Chichester Harbour's regional importance, an reference to the work of the CHaPRoN partnership.

Good policy.

Suggest that the policy wording is amended as follows to include employment uses which are not prescriptive to marine uses only:
“The council will continue to work with partner organisations and authorities to protect and enhance the Plan's coastal areas, including around Chichester Harbour, Pagham Harbour, Medmerry Compensatory Habitat and the open coast, whilst ensuring they continue to provide an important recreational, economic and environmental resource.
The council will support:
• ongoing habitat protection, restoration, enhancement and creation, including both compensatory and new coastal and wetland habitats; and opportunities to connect coastal and freshwater habitats and floodplain habitats at a catchment scale to facilitate wider nature recovery;
• careful location, design and review of flood defences to adapt to climate change and sea level rise, to reduce coastal squeeze and support natural processes;
• appropriate leisure and recreational uses, including water-based activities, and marine and non-marine related employment uses which meet local needs, complement existing employment, tourism and leisure uses and or provide a public benefit, including those which require direct access to water; where these uses avoid adverse environmental impacts”

Premier is pleased to see a recognition within the Plan for support for leisure and recreational use and water-based activities in the coastal areas, and marine employment uses.
Noting the challenges Marinas now face, as mentioned above, we would suggest that the policy wording is amended as follows to include employment uses which are not prescriptive to marine uses only:
“The council will continue to work with partner organisations and authorities to protect and enhance the P’an's coastal areas, including around Chichester Harbour, Pagham Harbour, Medmerry Compensatory Habitat and the open coast, whilst ensuring they continue to provide an important recreational, economic and environmental resource.
The council will support:
• ongoing habitat protection, restoration, enhancement and creation, including both compensatory and new coastal and wetland habitats; and opportunities to connect coastal and freshwater habitats and floodplain habitats at a catchment scale to facilitate wider nature recovery;
• careful location, design and review of flood defences to adapt to climate change and sea level rise, to reduce coastal squeeze and support natural processes;
• appropriate leisure and recreational uses, including water-based activities, and marine and non-marine related employment uses which meet local needs, complement existing employment, tourism and leisure uses and or provide a public benefit, including those which require direct access to water; where these uses avoid adverse environmental impacts”.

A minor amendment to change the wording from ‘Regional Habitat Compensatory Programme’ to as it is now called the ‘Habitat Compensation and Restoration Programme (HCRP).

We are pleased to see the support in this policy for future habitat creation, as well as the delivery of flood defences and adaptation to climate change.

The policy requires a minor amendment to change the wording from ‘Regional Habitat Compensatory Programme’ to as it is now called the ‘Habitat Compensation and Restoration Programme (HCRP). This also applies to paragraph 4.69.

There are specific locations within Chichester District which offer opportunities to provide saltmarsh and coastal grazing marsh in the medium to long term. These locations include areas in Fishbourne, Chidham and Hambrook and on Thorney Island.

See attached representation.

See attachment.

Executive Summary

The Local Plan as written lacks ambition and vision, and will be detrimental to the landscape within which the district lies. It is a plan borne out of a need to produce a legal document which will satisfy the regulatory authorities. In terms of Urban Planning it fails “To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (NPPF).

The development that will consequentially arise from the deployment of such a made Local Plan is not sustainable. It will adversely affect the Character, Amenity and Safety of the built environment, throughout our district.

In particular, the Local Plan is inadequate for the needs of the people in the district both at present and in the future because –

1. It has been written in advance of the District having a properly formed and agreed Climate Emergency Action Plan. It is inconceivable that such a key document will not shape our Local Plan. It is this Action Plan that is needed first in order to provide the long-term strategic view as to how and what the District will look like in the future; this, in turn, will help form and shape the policies outlined in any prospective, Local Plan. The Plan as proposed is moribund, as a result of “cart before the horse” thinking.

2. The Local Plan as written does not adequately address how infrastructure, transport and services are going to be materially and strategically improved to meet the predicted growth and shift to a significantly ageing population. There is presently insufficient capacity to supply services and to have adequate people and environmentally friendly connectivity, as a direct result of decades of neglect towards investing in infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the District’s population. We are led to believe that developers through increased levies in order to gain permission to build will fulfil this need, but all that this will result in is an uncoordinated, dysfunctional mess completely lacking in any future-proof master planning approach. We contend that this will do nothing for the quality of life of Chichester District residents and it will create a vacuum whereby few if indeed any can be held accountable or indeed found liable for shortcomings in the future.

3. The Local Plan as written does not state how it will go about addressing the need to create affordable homes. The District Council’s record on this matter since the last made plan has been inadequate and now the creation of affordable homes has become urgent as political/economic/social factors drive an ever increasing rate of change within the District.

4. Flood risks assessments used in forming the Plan are out of date (last completed in 2018) and any decision to allocate sites is contrary to Environment Agency policy. Additionally, since March 2021 Natural England established a position in relationship to ‘Hold the Line’ vs. ‘Managed Retreat’ in environmentally sensitive areas, of which the Chichester Harbour AONB is a significant example. CDC have failed to set out an appropriate policy within the proposed Local Plan that addresses this requirement.

5. The A27 needs significant investment in order to yield significant benefits for those travelling through the East-West corridor; this is unfunded. Essential improvements to the A27 are key to the success of any Local Plan particularly as the city’s ambitions are to expand significantly in the next two decades. But any ambitions will fall flat if the A27 is not improved before such plans are implemented.. The A259 is an increasingly dangerous so-called ‘resilient road’ with a significant increase in accidents and fatalities in recent years. In 2011, the BBC named the road as the “most crash prone A road” in the UK. There is nothing in the Local Plan that addresses this issue. There is no capacity within the strategic road network serving our district to accommodate the increase in housing planned, and the Local Plan does not guarantee it.

6. There is insufficient wastewater treatment capacity in the District to support the current houses let alone more. The tankering of wastewater from recent developments that Southern Water has not been able to connect to their network and in recent months the required emergency use of tankers to pump out overflowing sewers within our City/District reflects the gross weakness of short-termism dominated thinking at its worst and is an indictment of how broken our water system is. The provision of wastewater treatment is absolutely critical and essential to the well-being of all our residents and the long-term safety of our built environment. The abdication by those in authority, whether that be nationally, regionally or locally, is causing serious harm to the people to whom those in power owe a duty of care and their lack of urgency in dealing properly with this issue is seriously jeopardizing the environment in which we and all wildlife co-exist.

7. Settlement Boundaries should be left to the determination of Parish Councils to make and nobody else. The proposed policy outlined in the Local Plan to allow development on plots of land adjacent to existing settlement boundaries is ill-conceived and will lead to coalescence which is in contradiction of Policy NE3.

8. All the sites allocated in the Strategic Area Based Policies appear to be in the majority of cases Greenfield Sites. The plan makes little, if any reference to the development of Brownfield sites. In fact, there is not a Policy that relates to this source of land within the Local Plan as proposed. Whilst in the 2021 HELAA Report sites identified as being suitable for development in the District as being Brownfield sites were predicted to yield over 4000 new dwellings. Why would our Local Plan not seek to develop these sites ahead of Greenfield sites?

9. The Local Plan does not define the minimum size that a wildlife corridor should be in width. What does close proximity to a wildlife corridor mean? How can you have a policy (NE 4) that suggests you can have development within a wildlife corridor? These exceptions need to have clear measures and accountability for providing evidence of no adverse impact on the wildlife corridor where a development is proposed. Our view is quite clear. Wildlife and indeed nature in the UK is under serious and in the case of far too many species, potentially terminal threat. Natural England has suggested that a Wildlife Corridor should not be less than 100metres wide. The proposed Wildlife Corridors agreed to by CDC must be enlarged and fully protected from any development. This is essential and urgent for those Wildlife Corridors which allow wildlife to achieve essential connectivity between the Chichester Harbour AONB and the South Downs National Park.

10. Biodiversity Policy NE5 - This is an absolute nonsense. If biodiversity is going to be harmed there should be no ability to mitigate or for developers to be able to buy their way out of this situation. This mindset is exactly why we are seeing a significant decline in biodiversity in the District which should be a rich in biodiversity area and why the World Economic Forum Report (2023) cites the UK as one of the worst countries in the world for destroying its biodiversity.

11. In many cases as set out in the Policies the strategic requirements lack being SMART in nature – particularly the M Measurable. These need to be explicit and clear: “you get what you measure”.

12. 65% of the perimeter of the District of Chichester south of the SDNP is coastal in nature. The remainder being land-facing. Policy NE11 does not sufficiently address the impact of building property in close proximity to the area surrounding the harbour, something acknowledged by the Harbour Conservancy in a published report in 2018 reflecting upon how surrounding the harbour with housing was detrimental to it long-term health. And here we are 5 years on and all of the organizations that CDC are saying that they are working in collaboration with, to remedy the decline in the harbour’s condition, are failing to implement the actions necessary in a reasonable timescale. CDC are following when they should be actually taking the lead on the issue. Being followers rather than leaders makes it easy to abdicate responsibility. There must be full and transparent accountability.

13. The very significant space constraints for the plan area must be taken into account. The standard methodology need no longer apply where there are exceptional circumstances and we are certain that our District should be treated as a special case because of the developable land area is severely reduced by the South Downs National Park (SDNP) to the north and the unique marine AONB of Chichester Harbour to the south. A target of 535dpa is way too high. This number should be reduced to reflect the fact that only 30% of the area can be developed and much of that is rural/semi-rural land which provides essential connectivity for wildlife via a number of wildlife corridors running between the SDNP and the AONB. Excessive housebuilding will do irretrievable damage to the environment and lead to a significant deterioration in quality of life for all who reside within the East / West corridor.

14. Many of the sites identified in the Strategic & Area Based Policies could result in Grade 1 ^ 2 farmland being built upon. The UK is not self-sufficient in our food security. It is short-sighted to expect the world to return to what we have come to expect. Our good quality agricultural land should not all be covered with non-environmentally friendly designed homes.

Advise that the following additions should still be made for completeness and clarity:
• Expand supporting paragraph 4.65: “Since designation, almost half (46%) of the saltmarsh has been lost, with the remainder of poor quality. Coastal defences are constraining the natural processes within the harbour, that allows it to respond to climate change.”
• Include reference to Chichester Harbour Conservancy in paragraph 4.66 as one of the key partners Natural England is working with.
• In relation to the final sentence in paragraph 4.66 we would like to point out that in it’s ability to control the amount and type of development in the district (including coastal defences, housing etc) the Local Plan has significant scope to contribute to addressing the various
issues affecting Chichester Harbour.
• Expand first policy bullet to read “ongoing habitat protection, restoration, enhancement, and creation, including both compensatory and new coastal and wetland habitats to help meet the 30 by 30 targets set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan (2023); and opportunities to connect coastal and freshwater habitats and floodplain habitats at a catchment scale to facilitate wider nature recovery.”

Summary of advice
While we have raised some queries and recommended some further modifications to certain policies we do not find the Plan unsound on any grounds relating to our remit.
Natural England has reviewed the Proposed Submission Local Plan and accompanying appendices together with the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) and Sustainability Appraisal (SA). Our detailed comments on the policies and site allocations are provided as follows:
• Annex 1 - Chapter 2 – Vision and Strategic Objectives
• Annex 2 - Chapter 4 – Climate Change and the Natural Environment
• Annex 3 - Chapter 5 (Housing) and Chapter 6 – (Place-making, Health and Well-being)
• Annex 4 - Chapter 7 (Employment and Economy) and Chapter 8 (Transport and
Accessibility)
• Annex 5 - Chaper 10 – Strategic and Area Based Policies
Please note that we have not provided comments on all policies but those which have most influence on environmental issues. Natural England has no comment to make on the policies not covered in this response. Other than confirming that we have referred to it when considering our advice on specific policies and site allocations Natural England has no general comments to make on the SA.
Unfortunately due to unforeseen resourcing issues while we have reviewed the associated HRA we are not in a position to provide detailed comment on it as part of this response. We will rectify this as soon as possible and can confirm that we have seen nothing in it that raises any major concerns.
The Plan has many positive aspects including standalone policies on Green Infrastructure (GI) and
wildlife corridors and an incredibly extensive suite of natural environment policies more generally.
We are hugely appreciative of the opportunity that we were given to work with you on shaping key policies post-Regulation 18. However, we believe that the plan needs to go further in it’s recognition of coastal squeeze as a key issue for the district, should include policy hooks for the forthcoming Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and make up to date references to both the Environment Act (2021) and the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP, 2023). Given how recent the publication of the EIP is we would be happy to discuss with your authority how this could best be achieved but
we believe given the wealth of natural capital within Chichester District it is vitally important that this latest iteration of the Local Plan is set in its full policy and legislative context.
We have suggested a significant number of amendments and additions to both policies and
supporting text throughout the Plan. In our view these could all be taken forward as minor modifications but if they were all acted upon they would leave the Plan much stronger and more coherent in delivering for the natural environment, one of the three central tenets of genuinely
sustainable development as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2021,
paragraph 8c).

See attachment for representations on paragraphs/policies.

See attached representation.

Are these distances adequate given the now accelerating rise in sea level?

Summary of advice
While we have raised some queries and recommended some further modifications to certain policies we do not find the Plan unsound on any grounds relating to our remit.
Natural England has reviewed the Proposed Submission Local Plan and accompanying appendices together with the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) and Sustainability Appraisal (SA). Our detailed comments on the policies and site allocations are provided as follows:
• Annex 1 - Chapter 2 – Vision and Strategic Objectives
• Annex 2 - Chapter 4 – Climate Change and the Natural Environment
• Annex 3 - Chapter 5 (Housing) and Chapter 6 – (Place-making, Health and Well-being)
• Annex 4 - Chapter 7 (Employment and Economy) and Chapter 8 (Transport and
Accessibility)
• Annex 5 - Chaper 10 – Strategic and Area Based Policies
Please note that we have not provided comments on all policies but those which have most influence on environmental issues. Natural England has no comment to make on the policies not covered in this response. Other than confirming that we have referred to it when considering our advice on specific policies and site allocations Natural England has no general comments to make on the SA.
Unfortunately due to unforeseen resourcing issues while we have reviewed the associated HRA we are not in a position to provide detailed comment on it as part of this response. We will rectify this as soon as possible and can confirm that we have seen nothing in it that raises any major concerns.
The Plan has many positive aspects including standalone policies on Green Infrastructure (GI) and
wildlife corridors and an incredibly extensive suite of natural environment policies more generally.
We are hugely appreciative of the opportunity that we were given to work with you on shaping key policies post-Regulation 18. However, we believe that the plan needs to go further in it’s recognition of coastal squeeze as a key issue for the district, should include policy hooks for the forthcoming Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and make up to date references to both the Environment Act (2021) and the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP, 2023). Given how recent the publication of the EIP is we would be happy to discuss with your authority how this could best be achieved but
we believe given the wealth of natural capital within Chichester District it is vitally important that this latest iteration of the Local Plan is set in its full policy and legislative context.
We have suggested a significant number of amendments and additions to both policies and
supporting text throughout the Plan. In our view these could all be taken forward as minor modifications but if they were all acted upon they would leave the Plan much stronger and more coherent in delivering for the natural environment, one of the three central tenets of genuinely
sustainable development as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF 2021,
paragraph 8c).

See attachment for representations on paragraphs/policies.