CPRE Chichester District responded strongly to an application by Celtique Energie for "exploratory drilling" for shale gas exploration at Kirdford, West Sussex. (WSCC/083/13/KD).

Update from Chichester District:

The District Council has lost control over planning applications.

Under para 47 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the 5 year Housing Land Supply (HLS) is based on the District's housing requirements; if that is too high, so also would be the HLS. A typical example was D/12/04410, which proposed 112 houses in Stockbridge. The developers relied on the Council's proposed 5 year HLS, which was too high. After every Parish Council on the Peninsular objected, as did the CPRE and the Harbour Conservancy, planning permission was refused. But on 21 June 2013 the Council re-convened and granted planning permission, without any reference to the previous refusal on the file. That decision was clearly not for sustainable development as required by the NPPF para 197 (and defined in paras 7 and 8, quoting the three dimensions: economic, social and environmental).

I am asked to concentrate on a summary of my 5 page objections to the housing numbers in our draft Local Plan. This is really about two words: “ Strategic Planning”, which sounds boring , which it is, until a disaster caused by it becomes too obvious to ignore. I refer to the appallingly excessive housing demands of the Chichester District Council (CDC) for building 3550 houses by 2029, including 1000 West of the city, 1000 at Tangmere, 500 at Westhampnet etc. The interesting part is my assessment of how this has wrongly happened, so I will mention that first, and give a few reasons. For my full assessment, any CPRE member who wishes, can supply me with an e-mail address to cause 5 pages to be sent back in return.