VOTE: Demolition plan for troublesome shelters along the seafront

Councillors will next week be recommended to get rid of the three brick-built structures between Gloucester Road and Marine Drive West.

First to go, probably within a few weeks, will be shelter opposite Kings Court at a cost of up to £10,000.

This featured on the front page of the Observer in January after a vandal had wrecked some of its seating to stop it being used nightly by rough sleepers.

Kings Court resident Norman Fowles welcomed the likely disappearance of the shelter.

“That will be brilliant,” he said.

“We have had no problems at all since the seating was damaged. It’s been much better. We couldn’t look out of our window without six drunks staring back at us.

“But I hope the councillors put a new shelter in its place. Perhaps it could be a circular one which would be more spectacular.

“The brick shelter is very dated apart from all the problems we had with it.”

Arun District Council chief executive Ian Sumnall says, in a report, the older- style shelters should be removed.

“Concern has been increasingly raised, and particularly over the last 12 months, about the shelters being the base for a range of anti-social behaviours, street drinking, nuisance and rough sleeping.

“The individuals involved in the reported activities are varied and include resident UK and Eastern European males.

“However, members should clearly note that work to identify the scale of the rough sleeping and street drinking problem in Arun and the winter shelter support programme has shown the groups are 31 per cent UK/white males and 69 per cent Eastern European males,” he said.

Their activities have been most visible at the shelter at the promenade’s eastern end, opposite Kings Court.