Years of traffic chaosahead

The drivers who are going through North Bersted and Felpham will be hit by a double blow as they battle through already-congested conditions.

The first bout of major disruption will occur when the two roundabouts are built at Babsham and Flansham to connect with the new relief road. At the same time, the initial several hundred houses among the 1,350 homes being built in the areas will be occupied to push several hundred more vehicles on to the A259.

Even the opening of the relief road will fail to totally ease the problems.

Construction work on the unprecedented expansion of housing is set to continue until 2016 to mean heavy lorries streaming into the areas for up to eight years after work starts.

The dire forecasts were given by Adrian Brown. He is the managing director of Berkeley Strategic. This is the company developing the 650 homes in North Bersted through a subsidiary, Berkeley Homes (Southern) Ltd.

Mr Brown met residents and councillors on Tuesday for his first public comments about the development since it was granted outline planning permission by government minister Ruth Kelly last November.

Among the 25-strong audience at the Bersted annual electors' meeting were some of the scheme's fiercest opponents. They had fought the proposals through two public appeals and a High Court hearing. Mr Brown gave them a frank assessment of the impact of the major building programme at the same time as Bognor Regis Community College is being re-built and two regeneration projects are schedule to be underway in Bognor town centre.

'I can say that the relief road will happen. There is a strict timetable within which it must be completed,' he said. That was the good news for motorists. The bad news quickly followed.

'We expect there to be some disruption through the construction phase of the road before its completion and opening,' stated Mr Brown.

'I'm not going to deny the situation is going to be anything other than that. That's the same with any major development scheme.'

He acknowledged that the co-incidence of up to four major projects at once would pose difficulties in keeping the traffic flowing for residents and other businesses.

'Bognor could see a massive amount of investment over the next ten years,' explained Mr Brown. 'There could be a lot of disruption, not only at this site, but right throughout the town. I can only comment on Berkeley Homes' response to this situation but we would be happy to sit down with Arun District Council to put in place whatever measures are appropriate or reasonable concerning our scheme.'

These could include times of delivery of construction materials, hours of working and adequate signing to stop delivery drivers taking detours through residential roads.

'There is a massive problem for the town as it tries to grapple with the challenges of all the change that is going to happen. You need to have more people working here and fewer people driving to Chichester every day,' he said.

Bersted county councillor Simon McDougall warned the A259 was already at a standstill during the peak traffic hours.

He said: 'How the hell are you going to manage all the construction traffic coming through the town allied to the horrendous traffic conditions we have on the A259 now?'

Parish councillor Gez Watson said: 'Hundreds of

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