Middleton Residents Pack Into Council Meeting To Object To New Development

‘Wrong houses in the wrong place’ was the assessment of Middleton residents who packed into Jubilee Hall to make their objections heard last week.

Middleton-on-Sea Parish Council fielded complaints about a proposed 67 home development in Ancton Lane at a planning meeting on August 16, put forward by West Sussex County Council and Lovell Homes’ joint venture partnership, Kinstead Developments.

Residents complained about overdevelopment, loss of area amenity, drainage problems, sewage and flooding issues, ecological and heritage asset impacts and lack of statutory notice from developers informing people of the planned development.

Steve Christie, a leader of the residents campaign, said ‘niceness’ did not seem to carry any weight with Arun District Council or developers, and that potential harm to wildlife, like the 13 of 19 species of bat found in the UK found present in the area by an independent assessment, was grounds for refusal.

He said:

“Anyone who looked at the planning notice would think it’s a brownfield site – if you drove down Ancton Lane you wouldn’t know there’s a planning application.

“The TPOs on the site can help [their campaign], West Sussex flooding authority are still waiting on a flood report – everyone’s got to keep fighting, we’re fighting an uphill battle.”

The ADC planning portal has 107 letters of representation, most objections, for the plans, with Mr Christie saying residents of Elmer Road and other neighbouring areas to Ancton Lane should object since traffic congestion and flooding will impact them as well.

Residents have erected signs protesting the development on roads and roundabouts into Ancton Lane, listing the planning application reference code and a call for more residents to write in objections to ADC, whose planning committee will decide the application.

The plans are for 67 two-to-three-storey homes, with two, three or four bedrooms with 30 per cent affordable housing, as well as new public and play spaces alongside dedicated ecological and wetland areas – which would include bee bricks, hedgehog highways and bird boxes.

Kinstead said protection of ecology, area character, and grade II heritage assets on nearby Elm Farm owned by WSCC, were a priority.

WSCC declared the site where 67 homes are proposed, the paddock of Elm Farm, surplus in 2021, meaning it would either be sold or used for redevelopment by the council, to ‘minimise the burden of local taxation’.

One resident at the parish council meeting said she was struggling to get out of her home when Acton Lane flooded, and it was due to the area being ‘horrendously built around’ and lacking in proper drainage/flood and sewage infrastructure.

Another resident said:

“Surely wouldn’t the [flood report] be enough. You haven’t got any drawings about what they’re going do the contractor so no one knows what they’re going to do.”

The development is seeking planning permission, meaning any drawings or indicative plans of layouts are subject to change if Arun council’s planning committee sees fit, and only need decide whether the idea of more homes on the site acceptable in principle.

Middleton-on-Sea parish councillors voted in favour of sending a letter of residents’ objections to ADC, on infrastructural, environmental and planning grounds – recognising the current housing supply shortfall in Arun could lead to the plans being approved.

They said the loss of a local pub and cafe amidst the cost of living crisis, indicated that opportunities for new families in the largely ageing population were unsuitable.