Details for 350 homes in Pagham have been deferred by Arun District Council claiming the village’s history is being ‘wiped out’.
The reserved matters application was deferred by the council’s planning committee at a meeting on Wednesday, December 13, over height concerns.
It was determining layout, scale, design and appearance of an application approved in 2018, for up to 400 homes between Summer Lane and Pagham Road, including a 70 bed care home and a 2000sqm ‘local centre’ for new residents.
Committee members said buildings on the development could block Pagham’s view of the 12th century St Thomas à Becket’s Church on Church Lane, saying not enough information on the loss of this view was provided within the application.
As a result of this decision, another reserved matters application for 65 homes in Pagham at Church Baton House, Horns Lane, was also deferred as council officers said the applications should be determined together.
Concerns were also raised over the loss of existing brent geese feeding grounds, drainage and flooding, and overdevelopment.
Peter Atkins, chair of Pagham Parish Council, objected to the new feeding grounds at the meeting, as well as raising concerns the village’s view of the church would be ‘lost forever’ if the development went ahead.
According to council officers, mitigation land, or new feeding grounds for the geese, have been ‘identified’ but not determined yet, adding developers would need to determine new land before development could go ahead.
Simon McDougall (Lab, Pevensey) said:
“I grew up on those fields as a child – it’s very regrettable that we’re at the stage this [site] has got a planning application sitting on it.
“St Thomas à Becket, I was christened there [and] so was my sister, it was my family church. I’m watching right before my eyes today with a decision, that the history that I’ve had all the way growing up is about to be wiped out.
“The soul destroying thing is the Brent Geese, the mitigation that’s been put in at the moment with the rest of the development clearly is not working."
He said there was no planning basis he could find that would allow the council to refuse the application due to previous permission being given, despite residents’ and members’ concerns.
Martin Lury (LDem, Bersted) said the condition imposed by the council to protect the geese and secure new feeding grounds off site was ‘paramount’, due to their importance to the village, saying ‘ideally’ developers would not be building here at all.
The site is part of the Pagham South Strategic Allocation in the Arun Local Plan, meaning it has been earmarked as a site for development by the council.
The council’s conservation officer said harm to the church was ‘less than substantial’, which council officers said should be weighed against benefits of new housing and jobs created by the development.
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