Proposed Sompting West Development - Public Meeting

Local residents will have heard rumours about plans by Sompting Estates to develop 520 new houses with Persimmon Homes on the land they own on the west side of Sompting. At the time of writing, no formal proposal had been submitted to Adur Council and the developers are claiming they have already consulted local people, siting an exhibition at the Harriet Johnson Centre on October 10th, although trouble is most local residents knew nothing about it! You can read more about the proposals here: 
www.landatwestsompting.co.uk

The proposals include a community farm and orchard, nature trail, holiday business and playing fields. But the major concern of local residents is, of course, how on earth are we going to deal with all the extra traffic, especially if it goes through the village.

This is the largest development in Sompting for some time and follows hard on the heels of the controversial New Monks Farm proposals in Lancing, which have yet to go before the Planning Committee.It is vital therefore that local residents are fully engaged with what is being proposed and have their voices heard. If and when the plans are submitted and go live everyone needs to have their say by submitting your views to the Adur Planning Committee.

From the start we have set out three criteria that would need to be satisfied before the development could be considered and this needs to be see in the context of the lack of building space in Adur outside of the National Park and the shortage of affordable housing.

• The development should be able to show why it would benefit the existing residents – jobs, environmental impact, additional amenities etc.
• How many of the proposed new homes will be genuinely affordable and how can local people and their families be given preferential allocation?
• Can the current infrastructure and especially the transport infrastructure cope with the significant increase in traffic or will the village simply grind to a halt?

There is a public meeting on Thursday 25th January 2018 at Sir Robert Woodard Academy from 18:30 until 21:00to give local residents the opportunity to discuss the issue and ask questions. James Appleton, Head of Planning at the council, will be present and I am hopeful the developers will send a representative too.