YES to £47m Link Road

TOWN leaders have greeted with jubilation the Department of Transport "yes" to the £47m Bexhill-Hastings Link Road.

The road is the key to unlock the land for major regeneration projects such as the North Bexhill Business Park and the 1,000-home Worsham Farm housing development.

Environmental group the Hastings Alliance has greeted the news with dismay. A major public inquiry into the scheme to take a single-carriageway road from Sidley across Crowhurst Marshes to join Hastings' Queensway now seems inevitable.

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From New York, town MP Gregory Barker who only days ago led a high-powered local delegation to press the case for the Link Road with Transport Minister Charlotte Atkins said: "This is a huge relief. Bexhill can now go forward to the next stage of regeneration with real confidence.

"The campaigning efforts of the whole community have paid off. The final decision from the Government was a very close call. Had ministers been allowed to pull the plug on this project it would have been an unprecedented disaster, but now thankfully we can face the future locally with a much greater degree of certainty.

"The Link Road is not just about relieving congestion on a busy stretch of road, but critically will unlock new jobs and new homes for local people."

Rother leader Cllr Graham Gubby said: "I am tremendously relieved. All the hard work that everyone has put in has obviously been worthwhile. I just look forward to this road being built for the benefits it will bring to the area cannot be over-estimated."

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