Chichester District Council has adopted a planning document aimed at helping to ease the impact of traffic on the A27 bypass.
Between May and July, 121 people responded to a six-week public consultation about the Supplementary Planning Document (SPD).
With no major changes needed as a result of the consultation, the document was officially adopted during a meeting of the full council on Tuesday (October 1).
The SPD provides detailed advice and guidance on the council’s approach when it comes to securing contributions from developers to help ease the traffic issues caused by the building of more and more homes.
The document states: “Road congestion is a major concern for residents and businesses in the district – in particular, congestion around the junctions of the
A27 Chichester Bypass.
“This in turn, leads to congestion on the local road network as drivers seek alternative routes, leading to further traffic-related problems on those alternative routes.”
It adds that mitigation is needed to ensure that the extra traffic generated by developments does not result in ‘unacceptable road safety risk or is otherwise severe’.
While the council has managed to secure more than £10m in contributions since 2016 – with another £9m in the pipeline – it has not been enough for some of the major work needed.
This includes improvements to the Fishbourne, Bognor, Stockbridge and Whyke roundabouts.
This has largely been because of significant cost increases over the past decade, which the council said took the work ‘well beyond the level of funding that has been secured through planning contributions’.
The cost of improving the four junctions is expected to be between £33.1 million and £53.2 million.
Taking out the money already secured from developers, this leaves a minimum of £13.56 million still to be found.
The new SPD will replace part of the old one – which was adopted in 2016 – and will relate to mitigation outlined in the adopted Local Plan, not the emerging Local Plan.
Deputy leader Jonathan Brown has long been vocal about his dislike of the national planning system.
He said: “The planning system is awful and not fit for purpose.
“Documents like this are a very good effort to try and maintain some sort of ability to plan and keep old documents current, despite policies and laws going out of date faster than developments are actually happening.”
