Decision on Compass Travel's use of part of Northbrook College's car park for bus depot is deferred

Compass Travel has already moved on to the site on Titnore Lane, which forms part of the Northbrook College car park on the west side of the campus buildings.

During a meeting of Worthing Borough Council’s planning committee, members found themselves torn between complaints from neighbouring homes about noise and pollution, and fears from Compass that the company would close if it could not stay on the site.

A spokesman for Compass, which keeps up to 40 buses on the site, said a ‘wide and varied search’ for a new home had been carried out since its lease for a site in Durrington was not renewed in 2021.

He added: “We acknowledge this may not be the perfect site but, with careful monitoring and correct control measures put in place, it could be a suitable home here for all parties.”

The council received ten letters objecting to the plans, with concerns also raised by its own environmental officer.

The objections described the increase in noise and vibration from the vehicles from 5am onwards as ‘unacceptable’.

Another mentioned that, during the summer of 2022, the arrival of workers in the early hours disturbed seagulls which nest near the college, adding: “The level of noise generated from the college’s 20+ nesting common herring gull birds is fairly obscene at this time in the morning.”

Committee chairman Helen Silman (Lab, Heene) who said she found it ‘very hard to accept’ that the college car park was the only place the depot could be housed given the area covered by Compass.

Another concern was raised by county councillor Sean McDonald (Con, Northbrook) about Compass’s plan to enter and leave the site via the emergency access point onto Titnore Lane rather than via Littlehampton Road.

The committee voted to defer its decision so that further discussions could be held with Compass to find out if temporary planning permission might work, if noise mitigation could be achieved, and if the depot could work without having to add buildings to the site.