Arun District Council's local plan envisages that in the long term at least in the early 21st century Clapham and Patching will be slowly absorbed as conjoining suburbs of Durrington as more houses and retirement apartments become demanded.

[3] The area was under the media spotlight in the 1970s due to many strange events which took place in local woodlands which became known as the Clapham Wood Mystery.

There is one major farm in Clapham, which for many decades was operated by the tenant farmers, the Cornford family; it is now run as part of the Somerset estate.

There is a village tea room and stores based in a portable cabin concreted into a corner of the recreation ground on The Street.

The nearest local pubs, The World's End (formerly the Horse and Groom) and, although slightly further away for most residents, The Fox, are both located in Patching.

For many years the two villages shared a local policeman who was based at a police-owned house in Patching, but this was discontinued in the late 1970s, and police from Worthing now cover the area.