Arun District Draft Local Plan

As previously predicted, Arun DC unveiled in July for public consultation its draft new Local Plan, setting out NPPF-compliant planning policies for Arun District over the next sixteen years.

Although the draft claims to protect “our much valued landscape including the coastal plains...and the land between existing settlements” (para. 1.3), it concedes that Arun is legally bound to plan for the housing targets in the still-unrevoked South East Plan and therefore takes into account both ADC's “preferred” target of an average 400 new units a year and the SEP average of 565 a year.

In order to satisfy the higher SEP target, the draft therefore identifies the three villages of Barnham, Eastergate and Westergate “with their local services and the vastness of undesignated space between them” (para. 4.9) as an area that is a “particularly sustainable location” for additional housing growth - and consequently a “strategic allocation” of 1700 or more new homes (Policy SP8).

Subject to improvements to the A259, Angmering is also named as a “strategic growth location” for up to 1030 new homes, while other parishes in the District are expected to accommodate at least 1120 new units - though rather surpisingly almost none are allocated to the parishes covered by the abortive Ford eco-town (Policy SP8). Since further consultation on the draft Plan is promised over the winter, it remains to be seen whether these allocations are final.