The Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP
Secretary
of State for Communities and Local Government and Minister for Women
Planning
application WB/04/00040/OUT
THE
WEST DURRINGTON DEVELOPMENT
Dear
Secretary of State
We
the undersigned, and supported by Dame Anita Roddick, representatives of Protect
Our Woodland, The East Preston and Kingston Preservation Society, The Worthing
Society, Worthing Friends of the Earth, The Ilex Group, The West Sussex Green
Party together with The Worthing Green Party are deeply concerned by an
application for a 875 house and infrastructure development on a Greenfield site
and the impact it will have on one of the last remaining block of Ancient
Woodland on the coastal plain of Southern England. We are also concerned that
the local community has lost confidence in the planning system.
Therefore
we are requesting that this planning application for 875 houses at West
Durrington, Worthing, and alterations to Titnore Lane should be called in and
referred to a Public Inquiry. Worthing
Borough Council’s Development Control Committee voted (by 6 to 4) to approve this planning application at its meeting on March 28th 2006. The Section 106 agreement relating to this application has not, however, been signed; and the Worthing Society has threatened to institute proceeding for a judicial review if planning permission is
granted. The matter challenged, would be the Council’s decision to approve
alterations to Titnore Lane. Worthing Borough Council has agreed that it will
not sign the Section 106 agreement while it reconsiders its decision concerning
the alterations to Titnore Lane. West Sussex County Council has meanwhile stated
that it will not insist on these alterations being made if the development at
West Durrington goes ahead.
The
issues this planning application raises, concerning the various inconsistencies
between the application and the Worthing Local Plan and the Inspector’s Report
on it, the indirect impact on the proposed South Downs National Park, together
with other issues of public concern should be exposed to public examination
before an Inspector. The case for calling a public inquiry was argued by many
organisations in the summer of 2005, after the Development Control Committee of
Worthing Borough Council had voted to recommend approval of the planning
application for the development at West Durrington, but it was rejected by the
then Secretary of State. His decision was reported to Worthing Borough Council
in a letter from Ms Susan Barnes of GOSE to Mr J. Appleton of WBC on July 26th
2005.
1.
Worthing
Local Plan
When
Worthing Borough Council published its proposed modifications to the Worthing
Local Plan in May 2002, it stated that it agreed to all the Inspector’s
Recommendations concerning Policy H4 West Durrington. One of the Inspector’s
recommendations was that there should be “the minimal linkage between parcels
1,2 and 7”.
The layout of the development that the Development Control Committee voted to grant planning permission on March 28th includes a spinal road, running from an entrance on Titnore Lane to the centre of the development. This layout of the development clearly contravenes the Inspector’s recommendation that there should be the minimal linkage between the development in the fields fronting
Titnore Lane and the rest of the development. If the development followed the
Inspector’s recommendation, there would be only a footpath and cycleway
between these two parts of the development. WBC has failed to implement its own
agreement to the Inspector’s recommendation.
The
Inspector also commented on having further investigation into an access off the
A27 to the development rather than Titnore Lane.
Finally
the Inspector recommended that there should be a Transport Impact Assessment
before planning permission was granted. This assessment, undertaken by the
developers’ transport consultants, was limited to estimating the effect of
various access strategies, with and without an entrance on Titnore Lane, on the
number of accidents in Durrington. It did not consider the environmental impact
of the various strategies.
The
estimates it produced of the effect on accidents were worthless: the study
predicted the effect on accidents in Durrington if there was no entrance on
Titnore Lane and there was therefore more traffic in Durrington; but it did not
predict the effect on accidents in Titnore Lane if there was this diversion of
traffic from the lane to Durrington. There was therefore more traffic in the
case where there was no entrance on Titnore Lane than there was in the case
where there was an entrance on Titnore Lane. This study, with its elementary
error, was used to justify an access strategy that placed a main entrance on
Titnore Lane.
2.
Highways Agency
The
Highways Agency maintain that the A27 through Worthing is ‘at capacity’ and
at a recent Public Inquiry gave that reason for objecting to the construction of
90 houses near the eastern boundary of Worthing. They also offered initially the
same ‘at capacity’ objection to the 875 house etc development in Durrington
on the Western boundary – yet later withdrew that objection without
explanation. Our consultants are mystified by this turn around as the Durrington
development is directly adjacent to the A27 and residents intending to travel
east to Lancing/Brighton etc would join the A27 at Patching and would therefore
be using the road space that the Highways Agency admit is already at capacity.
We
might also add that should Worthing hospital be downgraded and lose its A&E
department, a further 875 households might need to use the A27 to receive
treatment in another hospital.
3.
Local Public Concern
There
is considerable local unrest due to the feeling that the democratic process has
been overridden in order to approve the application at all cost. Despite
residents collecting over 4000 signatures on petitions (one of which was handed
to the Mayor by the M.E.P) hundreds of individual and standard letters, the
borough’s planning officers hardly mentioned them in documents to the
Development Control Committee and only replied to a few.
The
local community showed their feelings of disgust at the local elections when
only 21% turned out to vote and now objectors to the scheme have taken direct
action with an occupation of the woods.
4. Environmental Impact
Assessment
The
environmental assessment was undertaken over 4 years ago, is out of date and
woefully inadequate. For example, the surveys for just three (as there
are to many to list here) key protected species (great crested newts, bats and
dormice) reported on here, are all afforded full legal protection and the
developers are required to obtain DEFRA licences, yet, even at this stage in the
application process both the developers and the council appear not to be taking
this issue very seriously.
Therefore
Friends of the Earth Legal Department forcefully issued a request on 17 June
2006 for up to date surveys to be carried out. To date, despite regular chasing,
the council has failed to respond.
A considerable number of mixed native woodland trees will be felled, yet the
surveys only looked at 13. Even for this small amount, no one actually climbed
them to check for suitable roosting holes, someone just stood at the bottom with
bat detectors to see if any bats emerged in the time that they were there.
South Lodge Rue will have trees removed to allow for an access road, yet it was
not surveyed at all. In the bat surveys it mentions 1 tree, but no specifics on
what (if any) surveying has been carried out. This whole area needs to be
surveyed.
A long standing maternal bat roost was there when these surveys were carried
out, but those completing the survey missed it; also this maternal roost
contains brown long-eared bats, which are notorious for being hard to pick up on
bat detectors and emerge much later at night than other species. As the surveys
were only carried out from sunset for one hour to darkness, this shows how the
other roost sites could have been missed.
Bats were surveyed in August 2002, with an update in August 2003 yet no
specifics given except for 'no change'.
*Great Crested Newts*
Only surveyed on a few occasions each year, some years some ponds have not been
surveyed at all. Titnore Lake has never been surveyed. This has been taken up
with the Planning Dept, but to date they have given no reason as to why.
The land around the ponds where Great Crested Newts are present has been left
fallow and it is likely that newts are directly in areas where roads/houses are
to be built.
Last surveyed June 2003.
*Dormice*
*Dormice were last surveyed in October 2003
All the surveys were carried out on the east side of Titnore Lane, therefore
nothing is known of viable populations on west side of Titnore Lane. Should any
road works take place that removes the tree canopy from arching over the lane,
it will mean that potentially those dormice seen/recorded on the west side will
not be able to cross the lane to the rest of the woods, as dormice are arboreal.
With much of the woodland and hedgerow on the development site considered good
potential for dormice, the majority of these hedgerows – although
classified as 'important' under Hedgerows Regulations 1997 - are to be
removed, in which case this in itself will put any dormice at risk when this
work is carried out, it would also mean that there would be more reason for any
dormice on the east side of the lane wanting to get to the relative safety of
the non-developed west side of Titnore Lane
(Titnore lane itself cuts through the ancient woodland).
Dormice last surveyed October 2003.
Other surveys relied upon for the Environmental Impact Assessment:
Botanical
- carried out September 2000
Birds -
carried out September 2000
Invertebrates - carried out June 1992
Fungi
- carried out October 2000
Badgers
- carried out November 2000
Reptiles
- carried out July 2003
Water voles - carried out
June 2003
5. Effect on the Proposed National
Park
The
designated boundary of the proposed South Downs National Park runs along part of
the border of the proposed West Durrington development; the back gardens of many
houses would run up to the boundary of the Park. Furthermore the development
would add an inappropriate urban element to the view as it would be visible from
Highdown Hill, a unique feature of the Park owned by The National Trust. The
developers proposed, at the South Downs National Park Inquiry, that this adverse
effect of the development implied that the boundary of the Park should be moved
further north and west, away from the development. If the protection of the
landscape is the priority however, it’s the development that should be moved
away from the Park.
Conclusions
We
the undersigned feel that this combination of factors, including Worthing
borough council’s failure to implement its own agreement to the Inspector’s
Local Plan recommendation, makes it appropriate that the decision of your
predecessor should be reversed, and this application should be called in for
examination before a public inquiry.
On
Behalf of:
Protect
Our Woodland
Signed__________________
The East Preston and Kingston Preservation Society Signed__________________
The Worthing Society Signed__________________
Worthing
Friends of the Earth
Signed__________________
The
Ilex Group
Signed__________________
The
West Sussex Green Party
Signed__________________
The
Worthing Green Party
Signed__________________
Dated__________________________________