A huge number, in the thousands, of new properties have been built, or are being built, along the A259.

Unfortunately, this has led to a few unintended consequences for the area.

All new-build estates are required by council rules to include a percentage of ‘affordable’ and social housing. It’s usually 25% purely social housing, and then the balance comprises a mixture of freehold and leasehold shared-ownership properties, with allowances for special retirement homes.

The leaseholds and freeholds are usually bought by young families looking for a ‘starter home’ or by recent retirees, whereas the social housing is typically filled with the most ‘disadvantaged’ people -- often those with psychiatric issues, extensive criminal records, a history of drug use, etc. This is intended to avoid having council flats where the anti-social behaviour is concentrated (see Estella rd in Portsmouth for an example) and instead to ‘spread’ it across communities, so that the social housing residents are ‘brought up’ by those who work. Unfortunately, recent long-term sickness stats show this has not worked.

What this means in practice is that a lot of these sleepy, peaceful old villages such as Bosham are now experiencing, for the first time ever, massive problems with increased traffic, noise pollution and crime, especially thefts and drug dealing, owing to the most egregious proportion of residents in the social housing (this is not to tar all those who live in social housing with the same brush; it is usually a small percentage that causes huge issues, per the Pareto principle).

If you received the Village Magazine this month (the November issue), you will see the letters printed in it, which describe the specifics. The meadow near the Swan pub in Bosham is now a hotspot for drug dealing, and the Bosham Sailing/Yacht Club has seen a huge number of thefts. These issues were not present prior to the introduction of the recent population.

If this carries on, these villages could lose much of what made them such desirable places to live in the first place, with long-term residents left dealing with problems they never expected. By the time anything is done about it, it may be too late, and the quiet, safe communities that people have enjoyed for generations could become a thing of the past.