Council tax will be much needed
April 2021 draws to a close and soon Chichester District Council (CDC) will expect each household in Chidham, Hambrook and Bosham to pay next year’s council tax.
In return for this payment surely the same households, (in common with every other household within CDC’S boundaries), are entitled to rely on CDC to demonstrate due regard to and, where necessary, to actively protect the interests of their existing communities, as well as those pertaining to the wider natural environment, including Chichester Harbour, which is currently categorised as ‘unfavourable and declining’?
The sheer volume of recent and pending planning applications relating to these three parishes (I have counted six current applications for 651 new dwellings, including the numerically upward revision of one existing permission), have unsettled many within these communities, causing alarm and a general sense that the bodies charged with regulating such matters may be at the mercy of speculative developers.
While the future viability of the residual wildlife still resident on the remaining underdeveloped land in these parishes hangs in the balance, (each planning application’s environmental impact statement conveniently ignores or grossly underestimates the cumulative adverse effects of sequential erosions of habitat), it is the duty of everyone, each community and each public body or relevant government agency, to respect, value and protect the interconnectivity and co-dependency of all surviving wildlife areas and corridors.
So, I for one intend to pay my council tax in full and on time because, once
Chichester District Council regains its equilibrium vis a vis its crucially overdue local plan, it will need all the resources it can muster to establish and maintain a firm stance, one that will tame the current ‘feeding frenzy’, wherein a few property entrepreneurs feel encouraged to view any field or fallow area between the Harbour AONB and the South Downs National Park boundaries as land upon which to impose more dwellings, without having first ensured adequate sewage treatment capacity and a sustainable supporting infrastructure for wildlife as well as people.
HUGH BECKER Drift Lane
Bosham