Warnings not heeded – now building must stop, says MP
Arundel and South Downs MP Andrew Griffith has written to leaders at Arun District Council calling for a moratorium on all new building consents and developments in Barnham, Eastergate and Westergate.
In his letter to the joint chief executives and leader of Arun District Council, Mr Griffith highlights the events in Barnham in the past two weeks which have ‘illustrated in sharp reliefwhatmanyofushavebeen saying for a long time’, that too much development has overwhelmed local infrastructure.
The MP visited Barnham to see for himself the devastating impacts of foul-water flooding and met with Southern Water executives and engineers on site. Barnham has been dealing with issues caused by the overwhelming of road drainage and foul-waterinfrastructureflooding homes. Local roads have become impassable and there has been consequential pollution fromtheseweragesystembeing inundated.someresidentshave hadtoleavetheirhomesbecause of rising sewage.
Mr Griffith pointed to an inappropriate volume of housing development creating impermeable surfaces as the cause of the issues. This means the water runs off quickly and into the rifeswhichshouldactasnatural drainage in normal conditions. This, said the MP, was an issue which Arun District Council had been ‘repeatedly warned of ’ when preparing previous local plans.
The Arun Local Plan imposes more than 3,000 new houses in Barnham, Eastergate and Westergateinplanswhichwere drawn up before Mr Griffith became a Member of Parliament. Since becoming an MP, he has campaigned against unsustainable development, and highlighted the plight of Barnham, Eastergate and Westergate in House of Commons debates.
The MP is calling on Arun District Council to ‘impose an immediate moratorium on all new consents and additional developments in Barnham, Eastergate, Westergate and Aldingbourne’.mrgriffithsaid: “Enough is enough. We cannot build any more houses until a comprehensive report and remediation plans are published. “I want Arun District Council to see for themselves the pressure that the local infrastructure is underandtohaltanyfurtherdevelopment until such time that it is clear that there will not be further events like we have just witnessed in Barnham.”