Residents gather for public appeal on proposed West Ashling developments

Residents gathered for a public hearing which took place on Tuesday, January 31 in respect of several proposed developments on the land south and south west of Beachlands Nursery on Newells Lane in Funtington.

Appeals have been made against applications: 19/02939/FUL, 20/00950/FUL, 20/00234/FUL, 20/00956/FUL and 20/03306/FUL

These applications include ‘Use of land for the stationing of a caravan for residential purposes’ and another for the ‘stationing of caravans for Gypsy Travellers’.

During the appeal at the Council House, members of Chichester District Council raised their concerns regarding the proposed developments.

Senior Planning Officer Calum Thomas said: “The council believes that there is a growing concern for Gypsy's traveller sites with currently 43 pitches approved and ten additional at appeal.

“The resulting settlement - 4 hectares, consisting of the 53 pitches, in one chunk with the proposal lacks definition between sites and would be a visual impact of domination on site. The density of the development fails to respect scale of community and the number of pitches and scale of development would dominate the community.”

In reply, Mr Murdoch, on behalf of the appellant said: “I believe that the council approach s contrived, the local authority repeats verbatim to what they say to the inspector. My clients appeal is for three pitches and it is difficult to see how three pitches could dominate. These 3 pitched are adjacent to contiguous whip approved in 2019 and were chosen for that reason.Are we saying we have enough travellers in the area?

“Chichester District Council have drawn attention to the developments on Pond Farm, other side of A27, however, you can't see one site from the other. and it doesn't form a reasonable respective. Whether you add three pitches or ten, it nowhere near reaches the threshold of dominance to settled community.”

Kris Mitra, representing 58 local residents in the West Ashling parish said: “At the moment there has been no full and accurate survey in terms of site and therefore difficult to get an accurate number of households. Some in a single pitch have more than one caravan and more than one household in a pitch. The projection might have more that encampments with a population from 160 to 248 on site, compared to the settled community which is 430.

"That correlation results in dominance with an estimate between 25 per cent or 80 per cent of the settled community population.”

Luke Thomas, on behalf of Funtington Parish Council said: The parish council acknowledges the need for the traveller community as well as a strong vibrant and healthy

community as a whole.

“The council also believes that the sites should be looked at on their own individual merits and these enforcement issues will result in the harmful urbanisation of the land with the calm and tranquil site in Funtington disrupted.

“The appeal sites don't appear to be consistent and are spread unevenly across the land and while pitches have been granted, no consideration has been given for the cumulative effect of the developments.

The hearing is set to conclude on February 1 at the Council House in Chichester.