Fears as alterations turn into £10m proposal for a Pagham Harbour visitor centre

Objections to the way a seemingly minor updating of a building has become a grander project to potentially attract thousands of extra visitors to the area have been raised by councillors and individuals.

A proposal has been made that an abandoned landfill site at Sidlesham Ferry should be turned into wildlife habitat and a visitor centre built there to replace the current 30-year-old centre.

The new centre would include exhibitions, a classroom and a restaurant and cater for the 150,000 people who visit the harbour annually.

Harbour lover Kirsten Lanchester, from Oving, told Pagham Parish Council last week that the emerging plans were different from the

proposals she was led to expect during consultation between August and October.

"I thought I was being consulted on a seemingly modest improvement to an education centre at Sidlesham to improve the existing facilities for schools, studying and research.

"I certainly support that and most people probably would on the existing site. But what has come to light in certain discussions is a much larger-scale plan," she stated.

She claimed these had shown that a much larger building was envisaged with a licensed cafe and retail outlets. An outline cost had been put at 10m.

A project board had been established with representatives from national groups such as the RSPB and the Environment Agency but no local county councillors.

Cllr Mike Coleman, who represents Pagham and Rose Green on the county council, said he had been given no further details about the centre plans after an initial meeting about two years ago.

He met the council's leader, Cllr Henry Smith, on Monday, January 19, to discuss his concerns.

"This situation needs to be sorted now before it goes any further forward," he said.

Pagham parish councillors also expressed their concerns about the potential impact of more visitors being attracted to the area.

Sam Tate, the county council's project officer for the scheme, denied that the proposals would create a 'super centre'.

She said: "Nothing has changed from the public consultation document we put out last August. We want to build a visitor centre that will support formal and informal education and life-long learning.

"We want to build a centre that will inspire people about Pagham and learn more about the conservation work there."

She agreed the centre could well cost up to 10m. But much of that money would be spent on treating the former landfill site proposed as its location and owned by the Environment Agency.

"This is all about turning the negative of a landfill site untreated for 40 years into a positive," she said. "There will be a cafe for people to have a cup of tea and a small shop selling books relevant to the nature reserve. But there will not be a major cafe and multiple shops."

Funding was likely to come from outside groups and not the county council, she added.

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