Town Quay Purchase Near Completion

DEVELOPERS David Wilson Homes are expected to complete the controversial purchase of Town Quay, from Littlehampton Harbour Board, today (Thursday), writes Roger Green.

The announcement two years ago that the harbour board was selling the wharf triggered a wave of protests and legal challenges from objectors, who claimed river-related businesses on the quay were being driven out and replaced by housing.

As well as paying the harbour board 365,000, the developers are building new harbour offices, reconstructing the river wall and providing a new public, riverside walkway.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The remaining four-fifths of the site will be used to build 26 flats and one house, with parking.

The harbour board retains its fifth of the land, and ownership of the walkway.

Clearance of the site is likely to begin at the beginning of March, along with piling for the new river wall. Work is expected to start on the harbour offices during May.

Some of the businesses who had to move off the quay to make way for the redevelopment are relocating to new workshops which the harbour board is building upstream, at Railway Wharf.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Owners of the businesses were among the opponents of the sale of Town Quay, arguing that the loss of the wharf would lead to the commercial heart of the river being ripped out.

Protesters mounted a series of legal challenges against both the harbour board's land sale, and Arun District Council's larger-scale redevelopment of other waterfront sites, but courts ruled that both organisations had not acted illegally.