Plans for 300 Pagham homes off Hook Lane turned down

Arun District Council has recently approved two schemes in the village, 400 homes south of Summer Lane and {https://www.bognor.co.uk/news/politics/pagham-housing-major-development-of-280-homes-agreed-but-second-scheme-deferred-1-8704837|280 dwellings north of Sefter Road|. However a third large-scale housing application for land north of Hook Lane was refused by the council’s development control committee by 11 votes to three with one abstention yesterday (Wednesday January 23). Councillors turned down the outline application on the grounds that the increased traffic generated would exacerbate capacity issues on the highway network and mitigation measures proposed were insufficient to overcome safety issues arising from additional vehicle movements. The impact on Pagham Road was particularly concerning for councillors. Dawn Hall (Con, Pagham) said: “Pagham is a village, we want it to stay as a village. We do not want to spoil it.” She described the thought of housing bring built on the greenfields as ‘really quite distressing’. The committee had previously deferred the application for an independent review of the submitted road safety audit. According to officers: “There are not considered to be any outstanding safety issues associate with the proposed accesses that will not be satisfactorily addressed through the proposed conditions and at the detailed design stage through the Stage 2 RSA.” But Elaine Stainton (Con, Felpham West) said: “The infrastructure worries me deeply. Everyone knows how dangerous that road is.” Barbara Oakley (Con, Middleton on Sea) added: “I still do not think we have solved the road issues which are extremely serious in this application.” Pat Dillon (Con, Pevensey) labelled the scheme ‘overdevelopment’, adding: “The road surface through the village is absolutely diabolical. There are potholes and cracks everywhere.” Colin Oliver-Redgate (Con, Ferring) agreed, calling the application ‘gross overdevelopment’ and felt the developer was trying to put a ‘quart into a pint pot’. It was pointed out how the site was allocated in Arun’s recently made local plan, while West Sussex County Council as the highways authority had not objected to the application. Ricky Bower (Con, East Preston), chair of the committee, said: “I do accept on occasions developments do have a tendency to appear to make matters worse initially, but in the long term those matters get addressed.” Officers told the committee the planning application only had to mitigate the impact of the extra traffic generated by the new homes on the road network and should not be refused because it did not solve existing problems. However an officers’ recommendation to approve the plans was defeated. After an adjournment for officers to finalise a reason for refusal the majority of committee members rejected the application.