Call for ‘lessons learned’ report on controversial St Leonards Queensway Gateway Road

At a meeting of East Sussex County Council’s cabinet on March 11, Labour councillor Godfrey Daniel called for it to publish a ‘project assessment report’ on the Queensway Gateway Road — a connection between the A2690 and the A21 Sedlescombe Road North.

His call was prompted by a report discussed at the meeting which set out how the council’s capital programme is expected to include a £5.180m overspend ‘driven mainly’ by the project.

Cllr Daniel said: “I have had that [figure] clarified by your officers as £4.846m just in respect of the Queensway Gateway Road scheme.

“I have to say [the project] caused chaos for years while it was carrying on.”

He added: “We lived through that scheme, which I think many described as a fiasco to be honest, and to end up with that kind of overspend, for a fairly short piece of work in terms of … geography, is difficult to stomach.”

The council’s director of communities, economy and transport Ruper Clubb said: “It has been quite a challenging scheme to deliver, not least [because of] unexpected issues arising once on site, including: some complicated ground conditions; diversion of utilities; [and] issues with foul sewer in the main A21, subsequently requiring redesign requirements as you go.

“Members will be aware that this is a scheme that we chose to take on to bring to completion, because we recognise the benefit of that Queensway Gateway Road in improving connectivity and opening up other commercial/industrial type opportunities.

“It is also worth noting that this [cost] includes a decade of inflation and members will be aware that construction inflation at some points was hitting 25 per cent when you go back to 2022/23.

“I am pleased to say it has been open for a few months now and traffic is flowing well.”

But Cllr Daniel said he had seen correspondence between a constituent and Conservative council leader Keith Glazier.

According to Cllr Daniel, Cllr Glazier had — in a letter sent in January — told the resident the council was in the process of preparing a “project assessment report”, which would be expected to include findings on ‘lessons to be learnt’.

Cllr Daniel said: “Where is that project assessment report? I hope it is not going to be kicked into the long grass into the next administration, because I think many of us who were deeply affected by that scheme really want answers as to what was the problem.”

He added: “That is a huge amount of money, which if spent on other schemes could make a real difference to East Sussex.”

The project had involved government grant funding held by a now-defunct organisation known as the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP).

It had approved the project’s business case in March 2015, agreeing to a funding arrangement in which £15m would be transferred to East Sussex County Council and then to a contractor.

This contractor was Sea Change Sussex, a not-for-profit regeneration company partly owned by local councils. It had previously acted as a promoter for the scheme and secured its initial planning permission in 2015.

At the time SELEP approved the business case, the project had been expected to be completed by November 2016 — almost 10 years before the road fully opened.

The project first ran into trouble when objectors launched a legal challenge to Hastings Borough Council’s decision to grant planning permission.

According to a report from the time, the borough council had opted for the planning permission to be ‘quashed by consent before reaching a hearing’ following advice from its legal counsel.

This was based on the argument that councillors had not had been provided with enough information about traffic modelling, air quality and ecology at the time they made their initial decision.

Sea Change secured fresh planning permission in January 2016, but the delay meant construction did not begin until 2017.

The majority of the works were eventually completed by July 2019.

But problems remained around the final section of the road — its connection to the A21 Sedlescombe Road North.

The initial proposals had been to build a roundabout in place of a car show room, but this plan fell apart after Sea Change was unable to secure ownership of the land.

Sea Change said the county council should have secured the land through a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) as a way to allow the project to continue as originally planned.

Following this, alternative plans were developed for a traffic-light controlled junction instead of a roundabout.

In recent statements published on its website, Sea Change said its position was that the works involved in building-out this junction went beyond what it had originally been contracted to deliver.

It also said it had — by December 2023 — developed a proposal which it had intended to be the “basis for a final-phase contract to cover the remaining works.”

However, the council opted to take over the project itself in March 2024, appointing its highways contractor Balfour Beatty to complete the project.

The new junction was completed in September last year and the road is now open to the public.