Members Newsletter - October 2022

Dear Arundel CLT Member

Board membership update

Our Chair, Darrell Gale, has resigned from the board for personal reasons.  He has done this with a ‘heavy heart’ and remains a member of the CLT.  Darrell is one of our founding members and has been an inspiring Chair for us through the first years, bringing his knowledge of, and commitment to, the Arundel community, together with experience from his architectural training and professional background in public health professional.   He stayed with us despite the pressures of his work through the pandemic, giving the CLT stability during the critical period of discussions with the Norfolk Estate and Esquire for our first project off Ford Road.

The board have elected Paul Summers as Chair.  Paul has long-standing Arundel connections and brings both commitment to the community and  experience from a professional career in education.

Those of you at the AGM know that we elected two new Directors in June:  Caroline Elderfield and Amelia Lazareski.    Caroline has been active in the discussions with others interested in the new public access open space on the development off Ford Road.  Amelia lives in Arundel and is a Year 13 school student – thereby greatly lowering the ‘average’ age of the board!  Nick Chalk has agreed to be co-opted to the board: he and his wife Esther are interested in living on the new development. Nick was bought up in Arundel, met Esther at local secondary school and, following going to university, they have rented in the town since 2017. Full details of board membership and our Declarations of Interest are on the website.

Development off Ford Road

Following the public consultation in June, Esquire Developments have submitted an application for ‘Reserved Matters’ planning permission to Arun District Council.

(see the latest Illustrative Masterplan from the Reserved Matters planning applicatiuon above, click on the image to download a pdf).

The Reserved Matters cover many detailed aspects of the proposals and we have set up links from the Ford Road Planning Page to the Arun DC planning portal to help those of you who want to delve into the detail.  CLT Directors have spent time working through the document and we had a useful meeting with Andy Wilford from Esquire and Alastair Deighton to ask questions and comment.  We are meeting with Town Council representatives to share our findings and views on community aspects such as street lighting; parking – for cars and bicycles;  pedestrian and cycle connectivity to existing streets and paths.   

We continue to express our concerns as to whether the proposal to situate the 27 affordable homes in one area of the site is the best solution.  We asked Esquire to model alternative options to help clarify the issues but they say this would cause unacceptable delay.   We expect there to be further discussion during the planning process as their solution may not be acceptable to Arun DC.  Esquire are still in negotiations with our Registered Housing Provider Aster about the affordable homes.   

Esquire and Norfolk Estate have responded positively to our suggestion to up a Steering Group to provide a communication and co-ordination mechanism during the development, and begin to shape the formation of the Management Company which will eventually be set up to manage the communal and public space, and be responsible for Service Charges.

Children’s Forest

Over half the development will be new public access open space and we are delighted that the Children’s Forest project will be offered an allocation of land.  If you want to know more or get involved, please email Mary at marypeach1234@hotmail.com.

Growing CLT membership

Please ask family and friends who are not yet members of ACLT to join by filling in the form on our Get Involved Page.
 
A wide and diverse membership is essential to our governance as a community organisation and to helping our efforts for housing development in Arundel to be more community-led through the land allocations in the Neighbourhood Plan.

Best wishes

Hilary Knight
Secretary, Arundel CLT