[Politics] Goring Gap High Court challenge today

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

We are desperate for more housing in this country. This is an obvious site to develop. The only relevant objection is the effect on local doctors, schools and the like. Everything else is just nimbyism and whataboutery

Precisely, and your perspective resonates entirely with my local experience, noted above.

 

[Stat Brother]

If a planning application goes in, and it runs contrary to the Local Plan, it has every probability of being rejected.

The area between Beach Green and the houseboats is one Adur DC specifically wish to environmentally preserve. Meanwhile, the land by the Saltings roundabout has, according to Adur DC, flood risk problems that are deemed unsolvable.

Not for much longer!

 

[The Albion Roar]

Edit…yes they did buy it despite knowing the issues…I see they had a proposal turned down…but still hold the land…imo they’ll bide their time while they get on with other projects in the town

Unless they have a major solution to the 'unsolvable' problem, they will never be building there.

 

[Yoda]

I have lived in Worthing all my life, but moved a little out to Findon 6 years ago.

I therefore have a good understanding of this site and the potential impact and whilst I am naturally against all development on green sites this one does feel a bit like a necessary sacrifice to save other land. There should be a rigid no further development North of the A259 (west of Northbrook) but it is hard to justify trying to save this space. The A259 is currently being upgraded to two lanes all the way to Bognor which will help once done and therefore I'm marginally sympathetic that this won't case as much damage as people fear. But I get why if you live near to it you would be worried.

I'd like to see a Government designate more protected land in and around villages. There are some massive developments being made in parts of Sussex that are totally changing the life for those villages with disproportionate allocations of houses given the current size of them. A place like Worthing with 100,000 population can easily absorb another 400 homes (I get there is a tipping point) but look at what they doing to some villages where the number of homes are being doubled. Yes it comes with extra facilities sometimes but it totally changes the feel of the place. That can't be right. The surrounds of Horsham and neighbouring villages are a good example.

Pretty much agree with this. To me, Goring Gap is the area south Ilex Way that stretches to the beach. This would be much more ideal to be kept as a green site than that to the north.

 

[Igzilla]

How many empty properties are there in the UK at the moment?

 

[Stat Brother]

How many empty properties are there in the UK at the moment?

Exactly.
We don't have a housing shortage.

We have a systemic failure of capitalism because for the best part of 50 years 'greed is good' & 'the South East is best'.

 

[e77]

I live about a mile from the proposed site and it is a farmer's field that some people walk their dogs round, not some massive community asset. Had progress been made on town centre sites such as Teville Gate and/or Union Place the appeal would have been rejected as it would have been evidence that new home quotas were being reached but they weren't so here we are.

If it was considered so invaluable the Council should have brought it or put protections in place (to be fair they tried the latter but it was too late). There is some land at the southern end of Goring Gap by the sea that is up for sale at the moment if you have £200k spare.

Also, I have lived in Worthing all my life and always thought the Goring Gap was south of the train lines and Chatsmore Farm wasn't part of it.

 

[Chinman3000]

thats to be addressed by local government and health service. they have to accomodate those people somewhere. its a consideration for planning but shouldnt be an objection or you end up chicken and egg - there's no increase in demand so no need to provide capacity. of course needs better joining up so match and not lag. one reason larger developments are better than the trend to accept peicemeal 5, 10 house developments, as it focuses on total demand.

It should be required for planning permission though. In order to give permission for more housing the infrastructure should have the capacity FIRST. Its a bit like having a child and only realising after they are born that you need clothes, baby food, a cot etc.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Our local villages are in the process of being urbanised. Families are moving in to the area and then finding that there are no school places, especially primary education, The Borough, County Councils and planning officers do no not seem to take this into account.

 

[Icy Gull]

I live about a mile from the proposed site and it is a farmer's field that some people walk their dogs round, not some massive community asset. Had progress been made on town centre sites such as Teville Gate and/or Union Place the appeal would have been rejected as it would have been evidence that new home quotas were being reached but they weren't so here we are.

If it was considered so invaluable the Council should have brought it or put protections in place (to be fair they tried the latter but it was too late). There is some land at the southern end of Goring Gap by the sea that is up for sale at the moment if you have £200k spare.

Also, I have lived in Worthing all my life and always thought the Goring Gap was south of the train lines and Chatsmore Farm wasn't part of it.

I was under the impression that the field hadn’t been farmed for a few decades because it floods. I may be wrong but if so why would they be allowed to build houses there and if it doesn’t flood why hasn’t it been farmed?

 

[Giraffe]

Pretty much agree with this. To me, Goring Gap is the area south Ilex Way that stretches to the beach. This would be much more ideal to be kept as a green site than that to the north.

Also, I have lived in Worthing all my life and always thought the Goring Gap was south of the train lines and Chatsmore Farm wasn't part of it.

I also agree the term Goring Gap has always referred to South of the railway line by Goring Hall Hospital not these fields North of the railway.

 

[Giraffe]

I was under the impression that the field hadn’t been farmed for a few decades because it floods. I may be wrong but if so why would they be allowed to build houses there and if it doesn’t flood why hasn’t it been farmed?

The flooding argument never really flies with trying to stop these developments I'm afraid because they always put in massive drainage systems to combat this which are thoroughly tested now. Find yourself a newt or a special type of snail. That's your best bet!

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

My two pennies worth

We need to have a national conversation about what housing needs we have now and will have in the future. Obvious nimbyism should be disregarded entirely.

Priority should be to bringing back into use existing unused housing

I favour the building of new towns, rather than tacking onto existing towns, unless the infrastructure is genuinely being added with the housing which it usually isn't.

The housing we need should be built by the government, or by councils, (with local people involved in the design) not property developers. This is what public borrowing should be for. These developers have had ample chance to show they their motivations are compatible with the medium and long term public good. They have failed. Let them stick to building the odd luxury flat in Kensington.

 

[beorhthelm]

It should be required for planning permission though. In order to give permission for more housing the infrastructure should have the capacity FIRST. Its a bit like having a child and only realising after they are born that you need clothes, baby food, a cot etc.

then you need over capacity in infrastructure in order to build anywhere. dimly recall Uckfield did this, with the bypass and built a hospital in part to enable growth of the town. didnt stop complaints of insufficent capacity when the next development was planned.

 

[Husty]

The country needs more houses, and a lot less nimbys. Fingers crossed the right decision is reached.

 

[Weststander]

The flooding argument never really flies with trying to stop these developments I'm afraid because they always put in massive drainage systems to combat this which are thoroughly tested now. Find yourself a newt or a special type of snail. That's your best bet!

I’ve also seen the flood risk argument where a proposed development sits on chalk bedrock and never floods.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Unless they have a major solution to the 'unsolvable' problem, they will never be building there.

I guess it begs the question, why did a large house builder buy the land and submit proposals

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

As someone who lives about 50 yards from Goring gap (seafront bit), preservation of the Ilex and the fields between there and the sea is paramount.

Chatsmore Farm development will merge Worthing and North Ferring adding even more traffic to a road network that already can't cope (and don't give me any rubbish about sustainable transport options because people will still use cars).

As someone else said, it was supposed to go to the Rugby Club which would have left it predominately green space. I'm told by someone close to the original project that Persimmon didn't think they would get planning permission for housing so they bought the land to then do a deal to move the rugby club to Chatmore and build them new facilities so they could build more housing in Angmering on the current rugby club land.

It then emerged that they might have a chance of getting planning permission for the housing on Chatsmore Farm which would mean much more profit for them so they withdrew the proposal.

Nobody supports this application locally - even the normally anonymous Peter Bottomley has spoken out about it (probably because it is far to close to the homes of many of his supporters).

The fear is not just this development but then how much more gets squeezed into a town which is already in the bottom three nationally for open space.

 

[Weststander]

At a macro scale.

There are 268,000 long term empty homes.
https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/facts-and-figures

Shelter say we need to build 3,100,000 new homes.
https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/a_vision_for_social_housing

The UK’s population in 1997 was 58m, now its 67m. Housing supply has been woefully inadequate.

Something’s got to give, now.

[I have no knowledge of Goring Gap btw].

 

[beorhthelm]

At a macro scale.

There are 268,000 long term empty homes.
https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/facts-and-figures

Shelter say we need to build 3,100,000 new homes.
https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/a_vision_for_social_housing

The UK’s population in 1997 was 58m, now its 67m. Housing supply has been woefully inadequate.

Something’s got to give, now.

[I have no knowledge of Goring Gap btw].

empty homes are a murky stats, dont account for accuratly for holiday homes, owners away, unlet, renovation, undesirable, uninhabitable (various councils record different data, nothing central). the numbers show this is another distraction, assuming were all empty properties were available thats about 1-1.5 years of new build output. what then?