Southern access delay fears at Whitehouse Farm

The Whitehouse Farm strategic development land for 1,600 homes extending the western edge of the city

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After months of delays, the first 750 of 1,600 homes at Whitehouse Farm in Chichester is about to be granted planning permission.

However, serious concerns have now been raised over construction of a southern access being pushed back because of a land dispute between the developer and Bishop Luffa School, with fears the timetable for the whole development could slip.

Planning permission for Phase 1 was deferred by Chichester District Council’s planning committee in November 2016 with legal agreements known as Section 106 between the council and developer expected to be signed by April and then June.

At a planning committee meeting earlier this month, Joanna Bell, development manager at CDC, said the agreement was finally due to be completed by the end of July, beginning of August, and outline planning permission would then be granted.

The timeframe for building a southern access caused huge uproar during the planning process

As well as a permanent northern access to the strategic land development (SDL) off Old Broyle Road and temporary access from clay Lane, a southern access close to Bishop Luffa School will also be built.

However, commercial discussions due to be completed by July have stalled over the need to relocate the school playing field to accommodate the new road, Luffa’s desire to have exclusive use of two playing fields in compensation and plans to move the school’s access further east which ‘have the potential to undermine the agreement thought to have been reached’.

Addressing CDC’s planning committee on July 19, Ms Bell said she didn’t think ‘it would have an impact on the overall delivery of the southern access and the start of development of Phase 2, which is set for the spring 2020 and early 2021’.

However cllr Simon Oakley said: “I do not take as optimistic a view of the timetable as Ms Bell I’m afraid.

“The implications are that if this continues to drag out, especially having to go back to the developers and say the school wants exclusive use of this and more, where are you going to get your compensatory community-use playing field?

“That’s going to have a considerable effect on the land available for housing within the site.

“It’s all introducing more and more delays and more and more vulnerability to our five-year housing land supply.”

Cllr Oakley said having ‘waited and waited’ for land owners and developers at Tangmere’s SDL to then not ‘get their act together’ on an agreement, the council has had to set the course for a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) of the land allocated for housing.