Parking "nightmare"

At the moment, many of the Chapel Road estate agents and businesses have permits to park in the Union Place car park for a fee of 350 per quarter.

Now, they have been told those permits will not be renewed and they will have to find spaces in the three main town centre car parks instead.

Melanie Krost, manager of Leaders Rental Agents, said: "It is Christmas and it is busy. The Guildbourne car park is a nightmare to get in and out of. At the end of the day, it is certainly not going to help our business or bring us in any more business. We are really angry NCP has the monopoly on car parks in our town.

"Businesses could go bankrupt because of this. We allow 15 minutes per viewing. If we have to go to a multi-storey car park we will have to double that amount of time and that will halve the number of viewings we will be able to do every day.

"I have been in the Guildbourne Centre and I have spent half an hour queueing to get in and out.

"If the money for the parking permits was an issue, we would not be paying such extortionate rates for the permits at the moment."

Other businesses supporting her campaign included Countrywide Letting, King and Chasemore, Symonds & Reading, Patchings, Bodytone and Wheelers.

"Local businesses will have to pay staff more to cover their parking. The price of NCP parking will drive people out of town to shopping centres where the parking is so much cheaper. Worthing will suffer."

But an NCP spokeswoman said: "Following an extensive refurbishment of the multi-storey car parks in the town centre, we have reviewed prices and introduced a Rover season ticket which can be bought and used in any of the three multi-storeys in the town centre, which we believe is providing a more convenient and cost-effective service for our long-stay customers. As a result, this has freed up the open car parks for short stay customers and shoppers that visit the town centre and increased capacity for them.

"There is, however, still the option to buy a weekly pay and display ticket for the Union Place car park if this is the preferred choice by traders."