Harbour is site of huge homes plan

10:54am Saturday 14th July 2007

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An ageing port is to be transformed into one of the South East's biggest building projects, creating the equivalent of a new town on the Sussex coast.

The huge brownfield development will bring up to 6,000 homes along with offices, shops and a marina to Shoreham Harbour, The Argus can reveal.

Land stretching from Shoreham to Hove will become home to up to 14,000 new inhabitants - the same number of people who live in Southwick or Uckfield - under plans drawn up by the South East England Development Agency (Seeda) and the Shoreham Port Authority.

The revelation comes as Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced an increase in house building targets.

But politicians last night warned that the proposal will fail unless millions of pounds are poured into infrastructure.

The Shoreham Maritime project was first mooted nine years ago and was expected to deliver 6,400 jobs, 1,200 homes and 120,000 square metres of new commercial floorspace to the area.

The working part of the port was to be concentrated at Southwick, with a 'media village' at the Hove end and a mile of new homes, shops and restaurants in a waterfront development at Shoreham.

The entire regeneration was expected to cost £300 million and take up to 30 years to complete.

But the project ran into trouble in 2003 when Brighton and Hove City Council found the costs of road improvements were almost £200 million.

Adur District Council rejected the Shoreham end of the development last year, although the port has appealed against the decision.

These plans have now been shelved for an entirely new project.

Seeda and the port authority last night refused to reveal what was included in the plans and where the homes were to be built but confirmed that 4,000 to 6,000 high-quality, sustainable homes were planned for the site in the next 15 years.

The development agency is leading the project and has begun a feasibility study into the costs and economic viability of the plan.

The report, which will be published in September, will tackle the thorny issue of public sector investment.

Up to £30 million will be needed in the next three to five years alone and Seeda will fund a significant proportion of this.

Rod Johnstone, the chief executive of the port authority, said the new scheme would be more "comprehensive" than the previous.

He said: "This is at a very embryonic stage and we are taking it forward as fast as we can.

"This project reflects a step change in the thinking about the port and is a totally different approach.

"It is so embryonic that nobody can say what it is going to include but there is an element of all of these things - businesses, shops, marina.

"We need to work in partnership with the local authority to see how we can develop it together with them, the highways authority, the Government Office for the South East and others."

Adur District Council leader Neil Parkin said he backed a proposal for thousands of new homes but was concerned about infrastructure.

He said: "We have been trying to get going for ten years and other development is going on at the port.

"Without the infrastructure improvements to the whole area the scheme is a nonsense.

"I will want to see funding for schools, water, sewage and road infrastructure and they are still talking about closing Worthing Hospital's A&E."

Brighton councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn, the chairman of the city's major projects committee, said any scheme would have to address improvements to the road network.

Tony Mernagh, the chief executive of Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership, said: "It is a hugely important site because we are running out of brownfield land where there is the potential to build this number of houses.

"Shoreham port has had a long history of people trying to redevelop it and it is an area that is in desperate need of it."

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