LETTER: Observations on exhibition

I went to the exhibition regarding the proposed development on the flood plain between Lancing and Shoreham Airport on Saturday morning at the Shoreham Centre.

I feel that the council and the developers are not serious about consulting and informing the public but instead are doing the minimum necessary to get past the planning rules as quickly as possible.

Firstly, the time available (a total of 12 hours for the whole of Shoreham and Lancing to ask questions and understand the issues in a very large important development) is inadequate. In the exhibition, people were clustered around the board and easel for transport. No doubt they were extremely worried, as I was, because of the influx of even more traffic on the A27.

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Secondly, as far as I could make out through a sea of heads, on the transport board it read a signalised roundabout will be built to ‘mitigate the traffic problems’ and that seems to be the total of what the council has in mind. Are they completely mad? The traffic now is slow-moving enough at the best of times and jammed at peak times. I think that most people who use that road would agree that something needs to be done.

A man next to me told me that the Grinstead Lane/leisure centre roundabout is to be signalised, too. I looked at the board but could see nothing to confirm that.

But they are proposing that 600 or so houses and families with cars should join the chaos.

On top of that, to propose an IKEA store with the vast numbers of people and cars they would draw to the area must be a cruel joke.

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Transport is only one issue, but when you consider GP services (struggling to cope now), air pollution (a school beside the A27), increased pressure on schools, hospitals, sewerage, water, the side effects of the untested drainage proposals.

The council and developers will cry ‘we need more housing for people’ and that is true. Affordable housing is what the young people of the country need.

What percentage of this development is ‘affordable housing’? Then, with the definition of ‘affordable housing’ at 80 per cent of market price, you begin to see that this development offers traffic chaos, increased pressure on already struggling services, and a hollow promise to the younger generations for an affordable place to live.

John Harris

Brighton Road,

Lancing

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