Despite the extreme lack of official publicity, the meeting was very well attended by about 130 members of the public. The two speakers were Councillor Ricky Bower and Assistant Director of Planning, Mr Karl Roberts. They gave a Power Point presentation of the situation as they saw it for future development in the Arun District. They began by stating that they had no pre-conceived ideas for any future plans for the next 17 year Local Development Plan, and then went on to describe the way the future might evolve. The future envisaged for everyone is for steady growth in terms of economic progress, population, housing and traffic. They base their vision of the future on Government statistics of UK population growth of about 10% every 10 years. This means that they are projecting the present growth rate of the UK onto our region without any consideration of the suitability or otherwise of local ability to sustain such growth, or of any likely changes in the future. No details were given of any possible places for any development. (We all know there are limited options: urban extensions at Bognor or Littlehampton, Six Villages expansion or a new town.) Mr Bower at one point mentioned that a flyover at the Woodgate Level Crossing would be a good solution to the problem of traffic delays and the figure of £10 million was mentioned. How this relates to a practical possibility one day is not yet clear. When asked if the previous Option 3 plan for an Aldingbourne Bypass and large scale house building was now dead, Mr Bower replied that he “could not rule anything in or rule anything out”.
The nature of the presentation was to explain the Consultation Form to the public and the 4 numerical choices (or none of them) that could be chosen. Figures were quoted of numbers of houses presently being built, as well as figures for families in need of housing in the District. At present only 69 Affordable houses are built on average each year in Arun District. This compares to the figure of 468 houses built per year (mostly unaffordable), and the total number of 3,000 families in housing need with 1000 in priority need. Some comments were made concerning the obvious imbalances in these figures. The document does not explain in any detail how the number of houses is related to current population numbers, future growth, or most importantly where the jobs are going to be created to support these potential new households.
The current housing need, as defined by ADC, in the local area is: Aldingbourne 17, Eastergate 18, Barnham 70, and Walberton 20. There was no discussion on the concept of targeting house building to those who actually need housing. There was also no discussion on how rented accommodation affected the figures. One of the interviewees on a short film shown at the meeting stated that there was plenty of renting availability in Littlehampton.
The two speakers made much of the Government’s new Localism Bill which is not yet law. (The date likely for this is September 2011.) They seem to be saying that everything will have a new start and there was a real chance of local input. This may not be the case. Any Local Plan requires a large financial payment plus Council approval. There may be some chance for local control by way of referenda and local forums. It is still very early days yet and do we not have the whole picture. Please refer to a recent article from the Local Government Chronicle in the link.
