Campaigners warn of potential development

Campaigners are calling on residents to join their protest against potential housing developments in the Manhood Peninsula

The Manhood Peninsula Action Group is working closely with the Save Our South Coast Alliance 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.”

Councillor Susan Taylor 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 various sites included in the HELAA will be considered further, so that only those that are the most appropriate are taken forward for allocation in the Local Plan Review.

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’. 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.

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.”