Public Notice Portal round-up: Worthing school expansion, Hemiko heat network changes and Barnham housing development update

• An independent school in Worthing is looking to expand, with additional lodge-style classrooms in the grounds.

Courtlands By The Sea has operated Courtlands Independent Special School since 2023, offering special education for children who experience anxiety.

A full planning application and associated listed building consent application has been submitted to Worthing Borough Council by agent ECE Planning Limited to accommodate the school expansion.

The council advised in January that a single comprehensive full planning application should be submitted to capture all proposed operational and physical changes at the site, including retrospective works.

Planning permission and listed building consent were granted in September 2022 for change of use from offices to a care / school facility with overnight accommodation.

Since opening a year later, Courtlands Independent Special School has operated successfully as a day school. It has operated solely as a non-residential specialist school and the approved overnight accommodation has not been implemented.

This application therefore seeks to remove the previously-approved overnight accommodation from the scheme and change the use to an SEN school for up to 80 pupils.

It also seeks approval for two additional lodge-style classroom buildings within the grounds, installation of a ‘modest’ multi-use games area and retrospective permission to retain two replacement outbuildings.

Associated external works include 3.34m-high gate piers with in-built CCTV camera, automated metal entrance gates to the drive and galvanised steel security perimeter fencing.

• Hemiko is seeking listed building consent for the installation of pipe protection and new louvres at Worthing Museum, where the heat network pipes enter.

The Worthing Heat Network operator said: “The use of the existing window opening for the louvre installation means that no new penetrations through the historic brick and stone fabric of the building are required, which is the least damaging approach available.”

The district heating network provides low carbon heat to public buildings across Worthing town centre and the museum is one of the anchor buildings to be connected.

A single new louvre panel would be installed within an existing window opening in the sunken service area on the north-west side. No new openings will be cut through the building fabric.

Hemiko said the location was chosen specifically because it was the least visually prominent position available, being below the level of the street, screened by the historic stone balustrade and already established as the building's service zone with existing louvre panels.

• Hemiko has also submitted an application to vary condition 1 of approved plans for High Street multi-storey car park in Worthing.

Amendments include a change to the site area and methodology to include some areas of open cut trenching alongside horizontal directional drilling.

The original description included an extension to buried pipework to connect to the district heat network. The pipework was due to run underground along High Street, through Steyne Gardens and east and west along the promenade to connect the energy centre with Splashpoint and Pavilion Theatre.

Hemiko said: “Although the original pipework route remains the same for the areas involved, the installation methodology for three areas have been reconfigured to allow for potential of HDD exposure to unsuitable ground conditions and increased likelihood of failure.

“This follows the results and analysis of below ground make-up via taking Bore Hole samples.”

Promenade pit seven, east of the Pavilion Theatre, and the area from the Spash Pad to Splash Point Leisure Centre will require a traditional open cut trench method.

The pipework between the HDD launch receiver pits at each end of the Marine Parade parking bays is also highly likely to require the open trench method.

• Lloyds Bank, in South Street, Worthing, is looking for listed building consent to replace three ATMs at the front with new machines and place condenser units on the rear roof.

The planning application also includes refurbishment of the ground-floor interior and installation of replacement internal ATM machines, full redecoration and the formation of new staff room and toilets at ground floor.

The bank says the works are designed to support the continued viable use of the building while preserving the significance of this heritage asset.

“The internal refurbishment responds to changing customer requirements and modern banking practices, improving accessibility, customer facilities, staff welfare and operational efficiency.”

• Wildstone Estates, an outdoor media infrastructure provider, is applying for advertisement consent for two freestanding, internally illuminated, one-sided, digital advertisement displays at the Esso petrol station in Arundel Road, Worthing.

The petrol station is owned by MFG, the largest independent forecourt operator in the UK with around 1,200 sites.

Wildstone Estates is working in partnership with MFG to modernise its existing advertising infrastructure across the portfolio and, where possible, to rationalise and declutter existing advertisements.

The current business signs would be removed and replaced with two displays exhibiting static advertisements on rotation. These would be monitored and controlled remotely in real time from a network operation centre.

• BDW Trading Limited (Southampton) has submitted a variation of condition application for land south of Barnham Railway Station.

The application for Century Gardens, Tars Farm, relates to the wording concerning the railway crossing.

Outline planning permission for up to 200 homes was granted in January 2022. Condition 28 stated the development should not be occupied until a railway crossing (extinguishment or diversion) order had been made for the section of footpath at Birch and West Barnham level crossings.

Developer Barratt David Wilson Homes proposes changing the working to say 'no more than 20 dwellings, or an alternative number to be agreed in writing by the Local Planning Authority'.

A previous application for the amendment was refused in May 2026 as work on the bridge had not commenced. That decision is likely to be appealed but the proposal has been resubmitted concurrently, with a view to obtaining permission and negating the need to appeal.

Network Rail has programmed a new rail crossing, with works planned over ten weeks. The bridge is on site but works have been delayed by legal matters. It is hoped it can be installed by the end of August.

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