Depends a lot on what you mean by character. If you mean tattoo parlours on every street, homeless people in every doorway, chavs everywhere, then no, I guess Chichester does lack a bit of "character". And all the better for it.
I had the pleasure of visiting Chichester on Friday afternoon/evening, and what a very real pleasure it was. A very nice town centre with plenty of non-chain shops, and, what was really uplifting, good looking well-dressed people everywhere. It was almost as though I'd stepped back to an earlier...