Warning village west of Chichester could be open to 'years of speculative planning applications'

During a meeting of the full council, Jonathan Brown (Lib Dem, Southbourne) tabled a motion asking officers to look at work already carried out for the parish’s Neighbourhood Plan, rather than opting for what is known as a ‘broad location for development’ (BLD).

While a strategic allocation pinpoints actual sites for development, a BLD does not.

Instead it would identify housing supply for years 6-10 and years 11-15 of the Local Plan.

But it was year 1-5 which bothered Mr Brown.

He predicted Southbourne would be open to ‘years of speculative planning applications, piecemeal approvals [and] the undermining of years of hard work to masterplan development’.

He stressed that the motion was not about numbers – the Neighbourhood Plan included 1,250 new homes, which would almost double the size of the village.

The issue was about if and how sites were selected or if they would be left to developers and the ‘vagaries of the planning appeals process’.

Mr Brown added: “We shouldn’t kid ourselves: I understand that allocating sites in the Local Plan will not guarantee Southbourne’s protection, but it is clearly the best chance this council has to ensure that the future growth of Southbourne is planned and that every development contributes land as well as money to strategic infrastructure projects desperately needed by the community, and which will benefit the whole Bournes area to the west of Chichester.”

The Neighbourhood Plan was withdrawn earlier this year after an examiner found it to be ‘inconsistent’ with the district council’s adopted Local Plan.

The parish then essentially handed back the housing allocation to the district to deal with.

While Mr Brown did not think looking at evidence from the Neighbourhood Plan would delay the already delayed Local Plan Review further, others were not convinced.

Susan Taylor, cabinet member for planning, said it would do just that. Among her concerns was the sheer weight of work which would be placed on officers.

She pointed out that the bar for a Local Plan was higher than for a Neighbourhood Plan when it came to the evidence submitted – so all the work carried out by the parish would have to be re-evaluated or risk being challenged.