We gather from Dandara’s public relations consultant that his client is pushing to get the latest Campdown development proposal through Havant Borough Council’s Planning Committee before May, taking advantage of the many global, national and local distractions to hide the news. Havant Borough Council, no doubt, will also want to get spades into the ground to prepare for 628 new council tax contributions. Hampshire County Council Highways, as ever, will have their heads firmly stuck in the Winchester sand as far as the consideration of collateral traffic impacts from the 1,360 new parking spaces is concerned.
Nobody will give any thought to the ticking timebombs at the Rusty Cutter and Asda roundabouts. Or, for that matter, the rat-running traffic heading south down Glebe Park Avenue as the quickest way to join and head north on the A3M.
National Highways were just one of many statutory consultees who seriously questioned whether this development should take place at all. Little has changed since then, as the article below suggests.
- The development proposal history
- Public Consultation – your last opportunity
- So what’s changed since Persimmon withdrew?
- Here are the changes hitting or about to hit those A3(M) junctions
- Key takeaways from this post
- References
The development proposal history
We’ve been following this one for the past six years, though Havant Borough Council’s recorded engagement with Persimmon Homes dates back to December 2017. The development proposal first came to our attention on the HBC Planning Portal, as APP/19/01101, an application by Persimmon Homes for 130 dwellings with further outline planning application for up to 650 dwellings.
Five years ago, we published an article entitled “Campdown – A development proposal that’s wrong on so many levels…” which summarised the many arguments against this level of development on the Campdown site.
Persimmon went quiet. In the summer of 2022, Dandara Homes came on the scene with a competing proposal for 653 ‘high quality homes’. The company ran a ‘pre-planning consultation webinar’ in July 2022 and you can revisit that webinar in our report of that event at this link.
Public Consultation – your last opportunity
Having been approached by Lee Peck, the aforementioned PR man, we thought you’d like to know that Dandara have set up a (belated) public consultation drop-in session next Tuesday, from 3:30pm – 8pm, before they present this application to the Planning Committee for approval. The venue is the Phoenix Centre at Crookhorn, see map below.
We suspect that the event has been set so that the applicant can ‘tick a box’ which says they’ve ‘consulted with the public’. Indeed, since their own publicity for the event only seems to be on a business-to-business site, we’d encourage you to bring your concerns and questions along to this session. We’re assured that Dandara would be delighted to count you in and answer your questions.
So what’s changed since Persimmon withdrew?
What’s changed in the last six years?
Very little, as far as the content of the planning application is concerned. OK, the total number of houses squeezed into the space has been reduced, but the concerns raised by the statutory consultees remain valid. So too are the concerns raised by environmentalists and historians over the impact on the site’s sensitive bird migration value and archaeological heritage.
However, as far as traffic is concerned, a great deal has changed. The planning application contains at least 600 pages of transport documentation presented in support of the Dandara application, justifying ‘why black is white’. Unfortunately, National Highways overarching concern about the A3(M) and the sensitive design limitations at Junction 4 and Junction 5, still holds true. In fact, taking a broader view, those stated concerns are considerably more serious.
It’s now ten years since Havant Borough Council announced the £7 million pound reconstruction of the Asda roundabout.
If you’ve ever been stuck trying to get out of Asda, you might question just how effective – or not – those changes have been. Because of the limited access A3(M) ‘dumbbell’ junction at Purbrook Way, the ‘Asda’ roundabout is considered by National Highways to be an integral part of Junction 4 .
Junction 5 is no less of a nightmare, as the view below shows.
Here are the changes hitting or about to hit those A3(M) junctions
Havant Civic Society has looked at the bigger picture, in particular focussing on the collateral impact of traffic generated from other more recently identified developments. We outline these below:
(1) Traffic generated by the Barratts development at Harbour Place, Forty Acres, with the subsequent ongoing cycling and walking changes at the Rusty Cutter roundabout.
(2) Traffic generated by the Lidl development at the B&Q mini-roundabout. (Just think about that for a while.)
(3) Traffic which would be generated by the 100 new homes already approved for development on Hulbert Road, just to the north of the new Lidl, all of which will increase the load on the Asda roundabout.
(4) Allocation for 100 new homes in the Local Plan for construction on what is currently Havant and South Downs College car park.
(5) Local and eastbound traffic which will be generated by further industrial developments at Dunsbury Park.
(6) The traffic generated by the Amazon DPO1 development at New Lane, much of which already heads to the A3(M) and the A27 via the Asda and Rusty Cutter roundabouts.
(7) Traffic which will now be generated by newly approved inappropriate commercial development at the Havant North employment estate.
(8) Let’s not forget the wildfowl traffic generated by the Brent Geese and Curlew communities. The land at Brockhampton West, once owned by HBC and earmarked as a potential mitigation site for wildfowl, has also now changed hands. Unless sanity prevails, that site is destined to become Southern Water’s wildly extravagant effluent recycling extension to Budds Farm.
Key takeaways from this post
For the resident community – Regardless of whether your concerns about Dandara’s ‘Roman Fields’ development proposal for Campdown are about the sites heritage, the wildfowl or the collateral impact on the strategic road network, SRN, take the opportunity to go along to the Phoenix Centre next Tuesday afternoon/evening to let the developer know. The details are given, at this link, earlier in this post.
For Havant Borough Council – The limited access junctions at Purbrook Way and the Rusty Cutter are particularly sensitive junctions on the Strategic Road Network. Instead of continuing to approve traffic-generating developments in unsuitable locations, Havant Borough Council’s Economic Development function should openly acknowledge the significant shortcomings of the county council’s highway authority. We are looking to them to get a head start on local government reorganisation by collaborating directly with National Highways and local MPs to build a strategic plan for improving the borough’s connectivity with the rest of the country.
References
| Click link to view |
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| Planning Application – CHAPTER 5 – TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORT |
| TRANSPORT ASSESSMENT PART 1 OF 3 |
| TRANSPORT ASSESSMENT PART 2 OF 3 |
| TRANSPORT ASSESSMENT PART 3 OF 3 |
| CONSULTEE COMMENT – NATIONAL HIGHWAYS It’s worth noting the recommendation, highlighted in yellow in this copy of the document. There are multiple instances of very similar consultation responses from National Highways on the planning system, the most recent having been incorrectly filed on 17 January 2025 against the former planning application by Persimmon Homes which appears, confusingly, to still be active. |
Havant Civic Society 