Havant Civic Society has submitted a set of detailed, factual questions on the Environmental Statement and Transport Assessment supporting the Southleigh planning application (APP/26/00324, up to 1,800 homes). Havant Borough Council has added our submission to the planning case file, where it now sits alongside the applicant’s own documents for anyone to read.
We’re sharing a short summary below because we’d like more residents to look at the application directly, form their own view, and – if they agree that there are gaps worth raising, or see different ones – submit their own comments. The Council makes decisions based on the range and substance of what’s on file, not on any one organisation’s submission alone.
In brief, the HCS questions ask the applicant and the Council to clarify:
Junction capacity — a nearby junction shows a significant capacity failure in the applicant’s own modelling but was left out of the formal environmental assessment; two further junctions remain over capacity in every scenario tested, including after proposed mitigation.
Mitigation designs — the engineering designs for the junction improvements the application relies on are, as far as we can tell, still in draft form.
Active travel and the link road — a previously-considered pedestrian/cycle bridge has been dropped as “no longer a funding priority,” and no vehicular link road forms part of the current proposal.
Untested access routes — of the four routes we identify as the site’s realistic connections to the strategic road network, two appear not to have been modelled for the traffic they’re likely to carry once people are living there.
An outdated traffic baseline — the applicant’s baseline traffic count pre-dates significant, documented growth in HGV and van traffic from the neighbouring Amazon delivery station.
Other committed development — four other local planning applications feeding into the same road network don’t appear to have been assessed cumulatively.
Background growth modelling — a question about whether the standard national datasets used to forecast future traffic properly account for the growth in van-based home deliveries.
There are five further questions raised by HCS at the January 2026 HBC/Bloor Homes ‘Development Consultation Forum’ (DCF), which were never formally answered despite a direct request for a written response.
None of this claims that the application should be refused, but it’s a request that the applicant (Bloor Homes and partners) and the Council address these specific, evidenced points before a decision is made. If you want to read the HCS submission in full, click the following image:
You might also wish to refer back to the following HCS posts:
From five years ago – The ‘final’ Southleigh A27 junction layout?
From one year ago – ‘The Denvilles Gap’ – Do we need a link road?
From six months ago – HCS report of the Southleigh Development Consultation Forum, 27 Jan 2026
To view the planning application and its supporting documents, please press the button below:
On that page, you’ll see the applicant’s Environmental Statement and Transport Assessment documents, the Havant Civic Society Questions, and all other correspondence on the case file. We’ve already read the files and it is our first analysis of those documents which has given rise to the set of questions outlined above.
We don’t yet have a confirmed closing date for comments — we’ve asked the Council to confirm this and are still waiting for a reply. Rather than wait, we’d encourage you to check the portal for the current deadline and to submit any comments as soon as you’re able.
Comments can be submitted online by pressing the button above, viewing the documents listed under the ‘Files’ heading, then clicking the ‘Comments’ heading. At that point, you’ll see the button below (highlighted in red) which you should press to open the screen on which you can write your comment:
Alternatively, you can write a letter – quoting ‘Planning Application APP/265/00324, and post it to Planning Development, Havant Borough Council, Public Service Plaza, Civic Centre Road, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 2AX.
In the event that you have difficulty using the new planning system, you can click the button below to send an email to the HBC planning team. We set up the email, fill in the address and the subject, leaving you to simply write, or cut and paste, your input into the email before you send it:
A couple of practical notes: Comments become public documents once submitted, so only include what you’re comfortable being read by anyone; and please write in your own words – a personal, specific comment on the points that matter to you carries more weight with planning officers than a repeated form letter.
If you read the application and reach a different view from ours, that’s a genuinely useful outcome too – the more residents that engage directly with the evidence, the better the process works for everyone.