CAMELSDALE residents have claimed a small victory in their ongoing struggle to prevent a potential new housing development.

They have argued that new homes next to Orchard Close would cause environmental damage, traffic problems and overcrowding.

Since August, villagers have expressed fears that a developer had wanted to buy up several buildings in Sturt Avenue as well as back gardens of other houses to build an estate of up to ten houses.

However, Chichester District Community Housing, which owns one of the buildings in question, Camelsdale House, has said that it has no intention of selling the property to any developer at the moment.

Mark Coates, CDCH development manager, said that that it had to be "convinced of the need for affordable housing in the area which require the support of the local authority".

In a letter to Camelsdale resident Angela Boyle from the residents' protest group campaigning against the development, Mr Coates says he had been told by the local authority that "at the moment Camelsdale is not a priority and it does not have the funding to support a scheme in this area".

He added that it was, therefore, unlikely that CDCH would proceed with the development of the land in the near future.

Mrs Boyle, from Orchard Close, has been a part of the local opposition campaign since concerns were first raised, and helped organise a 120-strong protest meeting in the village in September.

She told The Herald: "It's progress - the fact that CDCH is not selling its plot means that the developer's got reduced space to work with. However, just because there has been no planning application, doesn't mean the developer has gone away."

Mrs Boyle expressed frustration that local people are unlikely to know whether or when they have succeeded.

"He won't phone us up and say 'you've won'," she said.

"A more positive way of looking at it," she added, "is that every week that goes by without a planning application going through is a victory."

In recent weeks residents have been trying to secure tree preservation orders for 14 trees on the plot of land.

They have also received a letter from Sussex and Surrey English Nature confirming that "the land is well used by bats for foraging and possibly for roosting".

Mrs Boyle hopes that these environmental concerns will give them leverage if the developer decided to go ahead with a planning application.

Chichester District Council told The Herald last week that no planning application had yet been received.

Developers SC properties said that they had nothing to add to previous comments made to The Herald in August, when they were "hoping to submit a planning application within the next two months".