Felpham Parish Council 'deeply disappointed' by 'unacceptable' golf club plans

The statement comes after a meeting of the parish council’s planning committee on Tuesday (October 11). Members reviewed information provided by West Sussex County Council’s highway department following their final response to the application and expressed a number of concerns with the outcome.

“Felpham Parish Council are highly concerned at the increased risk to the health and safety of that the rephasing of the traffic lights will cause and this proposal undermines a number of risk management solutions that have been implemented as a result of the number of previous incidences including fatalities,” the statement said.

In many ways, parish council members appear to see the application as a step-back for Felpham. The final lines of the statement read: “this proposal takes the village back to the situation that it had prior to the construction of the Charles Purley way and are deeply disappointed that the mitigation works that took place following the Blakes Mead development will now be negated.”

The planning application, which was submitted in December last year and lays out plans for 480 new homes, new landscaping, surface water drainage and access via Golf Link Road, is already the source of considerable controversy.

Shortly after plans were revealed, district councillors registered their opposition with a cry of ‘enough is enough’, and a protest organised by resident Simon Wild was called.

They said it was ‘another nail in the coffin of what used to be Felpham’s beautiful and balanced environment’.

The plans also provide for the demolition of the existing golf club, save for the club house, which will be repurposed and a separate application will see another golf club built on a site south of Grevatts Lane.

In a statement, applicant Hallam Land Management said: "(We are) working in partnership with Bognor Regis Golf Club to secure the long term future of the golf club through relocation to a benchmark new venue at land south of Grevatt’s Lane that will be facilitated by redevelopment of the existing site at Felpham for 480 new homes and extensive areas of publicly accessible parkland.”

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‘Enough is enough’ say councillors and residents at plans for 480 homes on Bognor Regis Golf Club