Mr Jeremy Bushell
Case Officer
Development Management Services
Chichester District Council
June 11, 2010
Dear Jeremy
Application O/10/02230/CMA
I would like to lodge an objection to this application. The principal reason is that it is in the wrong place.
What is proposed is an installation which in terms of height, mass and appearance will be quite out of keeping with its rural environment. Its elevations and construction materials will clash with nearby older residential properties and compete on the skyline with the medieval church of St Giles and, from certain viewpoints, the cathedral spire.
The tallest buildings, the digester towers and storage tank, will be one and half times the height of silos of the VHB Humber CHP plant east of Marsh Lane, and similar in height to the packhouse on the food park. The plant’s proposed siting out in the open, on a flat plain, whose water table precludes the sinking of the towers to reduce their height, is calculated to maximise its visual intrusiveness.
There are landscaping proposals that include hedgerows and poplars to screen the north and east of the site but they will be many years in the growing. And even when the trees are fully grown, the 4.5 acre site with its industrial buildings and perimeter screens will still look out of place perched on a former airfield, constituting an alien presence in the countryside.
The gross visual intrusion will harm the amenity of residents. It will be jarring too for visitors to this part of southern Chichester for whom the development will seem uncharacteristic and inappropriate.
The appropriate place for an anaerobic digester is as part of a group of farm buildings where its elevations can be integrated with those of other farm buildings and its noise and odour merge with normal farm operations. This is the case at the Crouchlands Farm plant near Plaistow and prospectively at the Barfoots plant at Lagness.
Langmead Farms should take another look at their property portfolio and select a site offering comparable benefits.
Yours sincerely
Stephen Quigley
Member for North Mundham and Oving Ward
The Old Parsonage
Click here to return to the top of the page.