Campaigners highlight threat of new housing in the Manhood Peninsula

The Manhood Peninsula Action Group is working closely with the Save Our South Coast Alliance (SOSCA) to raise awareness about the threat of more houses being built in the area.

Campaigners unveiled a new banner and handed out flyers highlighting the issue on Monday morning.

It comes as the council published its latest Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA), a list of sites across the area that may have the potential to accommodate housing and employment between now and 2037.

The previous HELAA, published in 2018, identified land for almost 2,000 homes in the Manhood Peninsula.

But the latest assessment found there to be potential capacity for 4,000 homes, the action group said.

Overall in the Chichester district, the new HELAA identifies 190 sites with development potential and capacity for, in theory, 26,383 dwellings – 18,466 more than in the 2018 assessment.

Joan Foster, leader of the Manhood Peninsula Action Group and chairman of Hunston Parish Council, said: “We were concerned with the old figures, now we are doubly concerned with the new ones.

“Why have they suddenly gone from 7,917 houses to 26,383?”

Councillor Susan Taylor, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Planning at Chichester District Council, stressed that while a site may be included in the HELAA, it does not mean it will be developed or that planning permission for any site will be granted.

The HELAA is a technical assessment which supports the preparation of the Local Plan Review and is there to ensure that only the most sustainable sites are taken forward for allocation in the Local Plan Review, she said.

But the action group fears that without the protection afforded by a local plan, developers will be able to submit planning applications for the area ‘at will’.

A local plan acts as a blueprint for development in the area and, without it, the authority has little say over what can and cannot be built.

Joan said: “Because there’s no local plan, there’s no protection from development.”

A review of the local plan was due to be submitted in July this year and adopted in March 2021, however earlier this year, it was announced that the July deadline would be missed and a new timetable was being prepared.

A council spokesman said: “The local plan timetable is under formal review, but it is anticipated that the final plan will not be adopted until 2022, following an independent examination.”

Joan said it was ‘shocking’ that it would take this long, adding: “The whole thing is just getting so serious for the Manhood Peninsula, and for all of Chichester.

“It feels like they want to cover us with housing and join up Portsmouth and Worthing.”

The action group is calling on residents to support their campaign, which calls on the Government and the District to reduce housing numbers to ‘reasonable levels’.

They are using residents to write to the MP Gillian Keegan, their local District Councillor and to the Chair of Chichester District Council, Eileen Lintell.

To find out more, visit the ‘Manhood Peninsula Action Group’ page on Facebook.

Chichester District Council said: “The Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment is a technical assessment which includes many different potential sites across the Local Plan area.

“Once all the sites put forward by landowners have been published in the HELAA, the various sites will be considered further, so that only those that are the most appropriate are taken forward into the Local Plan Review.

“While a site may be included in the HELAA, it doesn’t mean it will go through to the final shortlist.

“The purpose of the HELAA is not to allocate sites, and does not mean that planning permission for any site will be granted.

“It is there to ensure that only the most sustainable sites are taken forward for allocation in the Local Plan Review.”

View the HELAA on the council’s website here.