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Residents are at the end of their tether after a spate of anti-social and alleged criminal behaviour in a West Sussex village.

Residents and Conservative councillors in Findon Valley came together last week for a public meeting to urge Worthing Borough Council to take action.

A spokesperson for the group said: “The meeting concerned the borough council owned car park at the top of Coombe Rise where groups of people are meeting in cars and causing disturbances through the night playing loud music and wheel spinning. Other criminal behaviour is also suspected to be taking place.

"In 2021 the council started locking the car park overnight which solved the problem and neighbouring residents were able to sleep through the night again. At some point since then the council's security contractors stopped locking the car park.

Residents and Conservative councillors in Findon Valley came together last week for a public meeting to urge Worthing Borough Council to take action. Photo: Daniel Humphreys

"Local councillors have requested that the council resumes the overnight locking but they have been informed that the bollards are no longer operational.”

In response, Worthing Borough Council said it is ‘open to considering’ measures that would ‘combat any anti-social behaviour’.

A spokesperson added: “We have been made aware of reports of anti-social behaviour and have encouraged residents to report issues to the police for investigation."

According to the campaign group, the PCSO for Findon Valley attended the meeting and asked residents to report all instances of anti-social behaviour and ‘pledged to ask overnight neighbourhood policing officers to make visits to the car park’.

Councillor Dan Humphreys, who represents Offington and Findon Valley, also attended the meeting.

Mr Humphreys has requested that a ‘small proportion’ of the council's ‘£30million capital spending’ be allocated to improving security at the car parks in Findon Valley to ‘bring them into line with other car parks in Worthing’.

He said: "These instances of anti-social behaviour have gone on for too long. We had a solution that worked but at some point someone decided that the overnight locking of the car park wasn't a priority without informing the local councillors or neighbouring residents.”

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