Arun's park plans '˜short change' the town say civic society

After attending Friday’s exhibition the group has claimed the illustrations were ‘misleading’.

Deputy chairman Hugh Coster said: “Their garden areas were made to look as though they amounted to the full width of the present gardens, and we find that in reality they will be less than half the width we have at present.”

He said the result would measure 20 metres wide and that, if approved, Arun will be ‘sneakily short-changing Bognor Regis with half a park in place of what we already have’.

“Worse still, their new arrangement will bring children into conflict with cars parking. Right now the gardens are well separated from the cars, and why Arun thinks they can mix up cars parking with children playing I can’t imagine.”

He added: “It might be a little different if they were adding something that the town doesn’t already have, but they are not. All we will have is a bland re-working of the present lush garden and mature trees, overshadowed by massive new

blocks of flats and stiff with cars.”

The society has also highlighted that the future of the health centre is an unknown and raised concerns the facility will be ‘swept away in Arun’s rush to build more than 100 flats on this site’.

Mr Coster said: “It’s bad enough that they are proposing to cut the number of available parking spaces on this site, but driving away medical facilities absolutely must not happen.”

Voicing concerns with parking and the creation of a wind tunnel on the site, the society issued a call for Arun to ‘radically reconsider’ the proposals.

A consultation is currently ongoing, until October 20. See more information HERE

For a special report from the exhibition see Thursday’s Bognor Regis Observer.

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