Manhood Peninsula facing housing ‘double threat’

The Manhood Peninsula faces a ‘double threat’ due to too many houses in the future and a potential planning free-for-all in the short term, campaigners have warned.
The Manhood Peninsula looking towards SelseyThe Manhood Peninsula looking towards Selsey
The Manhood Peninsula looking towards Selsey

Chichester District Council adopted its local plan in 2015, which acts as a blueprint for development in the area and, without it, the authority has very little say over what can and cannot be built.

On the instructions of a government-appointed inspector, a review of the plan was due to be submitted in July and adopted in March 2021, laying out planning policies until 2035.

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Last month, though, it was announced that the July deadline would be missed and a new timetable was being prepared.

With fears raised that the delay would mean a ‘free-for-all’ among developers, there were questions from the public at a meeting of the full council on Tuesday (March 3), asking who was responsible for the ‘fiasco’.

While no blame was laid at anyone’s door, Susan Taylor, cabinet member for planning, said: “The council recognises and is similarly concerned about the implications of development preceding the local plan review and is considering actions to seek to manage and mitigate the impacts.

“A formal report will be brought to members as soon as possible on this important matter.”

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Mrs Taylor denied that it was a case of ‘back to the drawing board’.

She told the meeting that, even if the July deadline was met, it would not improve how the required five-year supply of housing land was worked out or how that would impact on planning decisions.

She added: “It is the council’s view therefore that the five-year review period imposed on the council by the last Local Plan examiner was in reality, unrealistic and unachievable.”

Meanwhile the Manhood Peninsula Action Group has reacted to the delay, pointing to the thousands of objections submitted during public consultation on the local plan back in late 2018 and early 2019.

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The group argued the council ‘had not understood or listened to the concerns of many south and south west of Chichester’.

They described how from July housing developers would have ‘free rein’ to put in applications for large schemes until the local plan review is submitted.

They said: “It will be difficult if not impossible to refuse them without risking expensive legal appeals.”

The peninsula, along with being important for natural habitats and biodversity, acts as a flood plan for Chichester city and the South Downs.

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In a statement the group said: “The Manhood Peninsula Action Group met with [MP] Gillian Keegan in January 2020 to challenge the planned 1,933 houses for the Peninsula and ask her help to resist this development. We could now face even more. This is not nimbyism. We accept there needs to be more affordable housing, but not on flood plains with the potential destruction of the fragile environment.

“It is unacceptable that the Peninsula faces a double threat – too many houses planned and now a potential free for all of additional new housing.”

The statement added: “The Chichester area is in danger and there are serious questions to be asked. Why is there such a delay, putting the whole district at risk?

“Too many houses are planned and there is now a potential free for all of additional new housing. Chichester District Council is responsible and has to provide the answers.”

Additional reporting by Joshua Powling