Burgess Hill town centre ‘still has good qualities’ despite stalled regeneration scheme

New River first gained permission for redevelopment of the Martlets Shopping Centre more than six years ago, but construction has yet to properly begin.

Revised plans were approved in 2020.

Several speakers labelled the town centre a ‘disaster’ with many of the Martlets retail units sitting empty at Burgess Hill Town Council’s annual town meeting on Monday night (April 11).

And while town council leader Robert Eggleston acknowledged that part of the centre was ‘blighted’, he described how the town ‘as a whole has some good qualities about it’ including ‘some really good’ independent businesses.

This was echoed by others who highlighted the variety of events being staged in the town as well as the many hard-working organisations and volunteers.

The fate of the regeneration scheme is in the hands of New River and Mid Sussex District Council.

But in the meantime the town council is looking at two short term projects to improve the area: an urban garden on the ‘slab’ of the former library and Martlets Hall site and the ‘Little Hive’, which would see part of the old Lidl building used as a pop-up community venue and performance centre.

The first would bring a reasonable sized area back into use, not only as a garden, but an area that could host a range of community uses.

Part of the former Lidl building is being used by ITV Studios for filming its drama Grace and Mr Eggleston believes the rest of the unit could be used for a range of activities both for the community and smaller shows.

There are two other smaller projects being looked at, one to make the visual appearance of the former Lidl building better and improving the appearance of the ‘ghastly’ black hoarding.

Mr Eggleston said he had been in a positive meeting with the district council, who had been told by New River that it still intended to bring forward its regeneration scheme when it was commercially viable to do so.