Decision due on 287-home Goring development

Bellway Homes is proposing to build 287 homes at the former HM Revenue and Customs site, in Barrington Road.

The homes will replace office buildings dating from the 1940s and 1960s – with one block formerly used as a military hospital.

The government department and some 900 staff moved to the redeveloped Teville Gate House, in Worthing, last year.

A new ‘reserved matters’ application has since come forward for the Goring site, which already has outline planning permission for up to 287 homes.

It outlines the scale, layout, and appearance of the development and is set to be decided at Worthing Borough Council’s planning committee meeting on Wednesday (September 21).

The proposal includes a mixture of houses, flats, and a 68-bed care home – which will have a separate planning application.

Initial designs were put forward in April but fresh plans have since been submitted following consultation.

The ‘apartment zone’ to the north east of the site has four blocks up to five-storeys high.

An area of open space is planned at the centre of the development and the footpath to the railway is set to be improved.

There will be 462 parking spaces.

A total of 22 affordable homes are planned – less than a third of the council’s 30 per cent policy for such developments.

This is because an agreement has been reached with the developer which acknowledges that high development costs would ‘affect the ability of the development to meet the policy requirement’.

Council planning officers say the redesign has ‘alleviated the large masses of the buildings which might otherwise appear excessive’.

There have been several objections to the application, including from the council’s drainage engineer.

The environmental health department have asked for further information, partly due to the proximity to the railway line and because the design of some of the homes may impede escape in the event of a fire.

Some members of the public have commented that the apartment blocks would be overbearing and say that existing problems with anti-social behaviour near the railway station could be exacerbated.

Planning officers have since asked the developer to consider ‘fine-tuning’ the design to prevent anti-social behaviour and reduce ‘congregating opportunities’.