Worthing town centre manager relieved after heat network U-turn: 'Businesses are relying on a good Christmas'

Hemiko was selected by Worthing Borough Council to develop the Worthing Heat Network.

It was revealed last month that the investor, developer and operator of low carbon heat networks was proposing to extend its work schedule on the A259, just north of High Street Car Park from December 9 to December 18.

This would have affected A259 traffic in the weeks before Christmas.

However, this idea has been scrapped and the developers will ‘not be conducting any construction works in the public highway’ in December.

Hannah Manzaroli, Worthing’s business improvement district (BID) manager, said: “We were annoyed and angry that the businesses were seemingly not being considered.

"Businesses are relying on a good Christmas to help pull them through. We’ve had terrible weather throughout summer.

"We are a seasonal town and some businesses are hanging on by a thread.

"Previous roadworks have massively affected footfall. If people get stuck in traffic, they won’t come back. Other towns like Horsham and Crawley have much better provision for parking."

To ‘compensate for this additional disruption’, Hemiko offered the town four-free car parking days in the lead up to Christmas to ‘support shoppers and local businesses’. This offer remains, despite the change in plans – which will instead involve overnight works.

Hannah said the extended works would have led to ‘gridlocked traffic throughout the whole of December’.

She added: “We were annoyed it was being considered as an option. We had a lot of arguments as we didn’t want it to happen.

"Hemiko have been receptive of that – not a single person we spoke to locally thought it was okay. Even the offer of four days free parking didn’t mitigate the disruption.

"Eventually we managed to get permission to run a questionnaire which would allow us to gather opinion. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of the work stopping.

“We had to fight for that.”

To ensure construction works are completed by December, Hemiko has agreed ‘some night works’ with West Sussex County Council.

“The reason for doing these night works is so that we can move out of the area more quickly and minimise disruption,” a spokesperson for the developer added.

"We would have liked to have communicated these night works to you earlier, but these have only recently been agreed following the community feedback.

"There are two phases of these night works in November, affecting different sections of the road.”

Explaining the original proposal to extend the work schedule, Hemiko said it was ‘so that we would be finished with construction and out of the area faster’.

They added: “The festive period is an important time for trade in Worthing, which is why we sought to consult the local business and residential community on these works.

"Thank you for everyone who responded on our poll, we have taken all the feedback onboard and are pleased to announce we will not be conducting any construction works in the public highway in the month of December.”