Property developers continue to press on Ferring’s open spaces. The big developments seem to have gone away for the moment (The Strand, Sea Lane Gardens) but every month there are three or four applications to demolish one house and cram two into the available space. Ferring Conservation Group opposes all these applications: they over-burden our roads, our drainage system and our local services and, perhaps worst of all they change the open texture of a village landscape into that of a suburban estate. Every application that gets through makes it easier for the next, on the basis that ‘the area is changing anyway’, ‘another two bungalows will not make any difference’ and so on.

Our objections do carry weight: apart from Sea Lane Gardens, recent applications that have been refused include the ‘two for one’ proposal at 23 Langbury Lane and the bungalow to built on the scrap of land on the corner of Malcolm Close, and the plan to put on a car park on the lawns in front of Viceroy Court were withdrawn. In other cases we have lost the argument (the ‘four for two’ project in Langbury Lane, Owls Nest Cottage etc). But individuals need to write to the Planning Department, as well as the Conservation Group.

Here is a list of the planning applications current at the beginning of April which we shall oppose:

By Ed Miller (Chairman, Ferring Conservation Group)

Ferring continues to be assailed by developers, and the conservationists are having mixed fortunes. We have, as noted before, secured the framework of Ferring – the ‘gaps’ between us and Goring and us and East Preston are firmly written into District and County Plans and are backed up by Government policy and Planning Inspectors’ reports; Highdown is to be part of the National Park and the fields below it are designated as agricultural land; and Patterson’s Walk and the beach are not under any threat. Within the village it is a different matter.

Two ‘infilling’ applications have been approved in the last few months: four houses for one in Langbury Lane, two for one at Owl’s Nest cottage in Ferrringham Lane. One has been refused – the proposed cottage on a tiny piece of land in Malcolm Close. Two others are awaiting decisions- the proposed flats to be built over the Indian Restaurant and the Butchers shop in Ferringham Lane, and the very significant ‘nine for two’ application in Sea Lane Gardens. This latter application was heading for a refusal from Arun District Council but such is the flood of applications (not just in Ferring) that the Council did not make a decision within the normal time limit and the developers went straight to the Planning Inspectors. They are not expected to deal with it until the end of the year. It is expected that the Planning Inspector will refuse it.

The application for the flats above the shops is rather less controversial. Obviously, there is no increase in ‘ground’ occupied, and there is something to be said for tidying up the roof line and matching the flats above the other shops. Ferring Conservation Group did not object to the principle but there are a number of problems about car parking, tree preservation and the effect of the building work on the shops and the amenity area in front of them.  Any approval here must have appropriate conditions attached to it.

One of our biggest defeats in the last few years has been the approval of outline permission for three bungalows to go in what was the Tudor Close car park, and the loss of the hedge and lawn in front of the pub/restaurant. No bungalows can be built until the detailed plans have been submitted but the building site is already being prepared and the new car park laid out. What a shame to see the old hedge being ripped up on 19 September, to make way for cars! Shame on Arun Council for approving a development which was opposed by the Parish Council and just about everyone who sent in comments. Had they waited a few days longer they would have seen that the Planning Inspector shared many of the objectors’ concerns.

And if you are wondering what has happened to the Giant Windmill proposed for the field below Highdown, the answer is that the planning application is still ‘live’ but the file says the Council is still waiting for an Environmental Statement from the developer, now several months overdue. Can it be that the developers have given up on the idea? The file shows several dozen letters of objection (and a handful in favour).

Final message: please do not leave it to the Conservation Group, or other individuals to make your protest for you. If you too feel strongly about preserving Ferring, look out for those orange notices, and those adverts in the West Sussex Gazette listing the latest planning applications, and write to the Head of Planning Services about it. Your protest counts, because he has to count the protests.  

PLANNING WATCH 
By Ed Miller

Ferring is once again under attack by property developers. They seem to have accepted their defeat at The Strand, everything has gone quiet at the Tudor Close car park, and we wait to see what Arun District Council will decide on the visitor-attraction ‘windmill’, but two recent applications show that the developers are on the march again. 

The very latest is buried away in Arun DC’s weekly list in the West Sussex Gazette of 20 June: four semi-detached houses to replace one bungalow in Langbury Lane (FG/51/02). I have not seen the plans yet but this sounds like over-development. 

A much bigger threat however is the current application to demolish two houses in Sea Lane Gardens (one of them built only five years ago, I am told) and replace them with ten houses, using their large back gardens and building a new road into the site. This is application FG/48/02 by the property company Aspinall PLC. Local residents are furious about this threat to overcrowd one of the most pleasant and peaceful roads in Ferring with a redevelopment which would dominate their own houses and create traffic congestion and road safety hazards. But everyone in Ferring should be concerned about the effect on our village of this latest attempt to close in more amenity space and replace gardens with bricks and concrete. 

Arun DC refused planning permission for the 30 flats at The Strand on good planning grounds, and I trust they will reject the redevelopment of Sea Lane Gardens on similar grounds. Part of their consideration was the 450 letters of objection that were sent by Ferring residents who did not want to see their village become a built-up suburb of Worthing or Littlehampton. A similar number of letters to Arun DC about Sea Lane Gardens would show them that it is not just the beach area of Ferring that is valued but the whole of the beautiful area where we live.