'Biggest'homes plan to kick off

A small army of workers is expected to move into North Bersted and Felpham later this year as construction begins of the massive site six estates of 1,350 homes.

The initial two or three years will see traffic to and from the development sites, as well as the first wave of 3,000 residents, using the existing crowded road network. Its congested nature was shown when an accident at the Downview Road traffic lights yesterday morning brought traffic along the A259 to a standstill.

Bersted Opposing Site Six campaigner Wendy Kapp said: 'As far as local residents are concerned, this work is going to be make life very difficult, especially as far as transport and traffic is concerned. It is going to put more and more traffic past the Royal Oak pub and Chalcraft Lane.

'It will put a tremendous burden on people as they try to adjust to all the changes going on around them, particularly before the road is built. It's going to be hard in the immediate vicinity of North Bersted even after then, because the extra traffic is still going to go on to the A259 between the Royal Oak and the Esso petrol station.'

Planning applications to cover the details of the 650 homes off Chichester Road and North Bersted Street and 700 homes north of Felpham are set to be submitted to Arun District Council by the developers this summer.

Once these gain approval from councillors, who have agreed the principle of the development, the companies can start work.

Preliminary investigations of ground conditions have been taking place on the Felpham half of site six this week.

These are standard for every building project but the scale of site six on 40.24 hectares, some 99 acres, is without precedent around Bognor for some 30 years.

Flansham Park with 300 dwellings was developed on 28.5 acres in the mid-1970s and 32 acres in Aldwick were built upon soon after.

Site six will dwarf those schemes. Berkeleys estimates it will take until late 2014 before its 650 homes in North Bersted are completed. The company expects to build 40 dwellings in the first year and 90 each following year.

A developer for the Felpham land has yet to be publically named. However, it is believed the construction rate there will be 100 dwellings each year for seven years.

The initial year will again see the smallest number built because of the need to construct the infrastructure such as access into the site, drainage and services.

The Bognor northern relief road, which forms an integral part of the development, has to be finished within two years of the completion of the 101st dwelling in total for sale at the full market price. A third of the homes will be social housing.

Arun planning officer Stephen Cantwell, who forms part of the Bognor regeneration task force, said work on the development would be strictly controlled. The district council has stipulated as part of the outline approval that building work could only take place between 7.30am and 6pm Mondays to Fridays and from 8am to 1.30pm on Saturdays. A separate legal agreement between the developers and West Sussex County Council will cover highways matters.

Monitoring would also take place as the schemes were being built to ensure that matters such as the relief road, children's play areas and a community building were being provided in line with the timetable agreed by the developers and landowners, said Mr Cantwell. Land also has to be set aside for education and health facilities.

'Each developer has to appoint a monitor to look at the progress of the rate of development and the elements of the infrastructure that have to be provided.

'This is a new approach to development. It enables us to see at what time in the development programme these elements are going to be provided and if the development of the road, for example, is progressing as quickly as it needs to be,' he added.

Task force boss Richard McMann stated: 'Nothing on these developments is being left to chance. We have, and will continue, to emphasise to both developers to make sure they communicate their plans to the people who live around the site so they are quite clear in everything which is happening there.'