Protest against North Bersted homes raised in parliament

The Church Commissioners propose to create an extra half a kilometre of dual carriageway in both directions immediately north of the planned development.

A further 1.5km of bus lane will be built to enable traffic to flow faster along the vital transport artery.

More buses between Bognor and Chichester are also envisaged as part of the transport boost along with improvements to the A27-A259 junction.

More locally, the Bognor relief road will be extended from its current planned finish at the A259 over to the B2166 Lower Bognor Road.

Chalcraft Lane will benefit from a traffic-calming scheme to make it cyclist and pedestrian friendly, while its A259 junction will have traffic lights.

The package of measures around the proposed 2,500-home development north of Chalcraft Lane was unveiled at two exhibitions last week.

Steven Milligan, the commissioners' head of planning development, said: "Roads and traffic were undoubtedly the biggest issue the public raised concerns about at our exhibition in April.

"We have spent an awful lot of time since then doing detailed technical work on the road system to make sure it will cope with the traffic from the proposed housing, so the local roads are no worse than they are at present."

Drainage had also been subject to extensive work to counter residents' concerns, he said. Changes to the development layout removed all buildings from the small area of floodplain on the 370-acre site.

Talks were also being held with Southern Water to ensure worries about the impact of the extra sewage on the existing system were overcome.

Public interest in the scheme, called the Bognor Regis Eco Quarter, remains high. About 130 people visited last Friday's exhibition at the Jubilee Hall in North Bersted.

Saturday's follow-up display in the Regis Centre saw between 60 to 70 visitors in the first of its five-and-a-half hours.

Mr Milligan said an outline planning application for the first 2,000 homes, plus 47,000sq metres of employment space and community facilities and open space, was set to be submitted by the landowners, the Church Commissioners and David Langmead, to Arun District Council in June.

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