Developer Sign of Four is claiming its plans for an 18-storey tower-block of flats and shops in Newhaven would trigger regeneration

in the port. The planning authorities seem to have forgotten Newhaven's principal advantage is it being a strategically placed Channel port and that the best way to regenerate it is to improve the port's facilities.

This would attract long-term port users and create permanent jobs. What sort of port facilities? I can think of several.

In co-operation, perhaps, with Transmanche Ferries and others, a shiplift would offer ship repair facilities and even shipbuilding. (A shiplift is a large elevator platform that can be lowered into the water, have a vessel positioned over it and then the platform and ship lifted vertically to the ground level of the shipyard. The vessel is then transferred on rail-mounted bogies to a place on dry land.)

The system is in use all over the world. The one at Barrow has a lifting capacity of 24,000 tons.

A port that can't handle containers today is never going to attract new business. For some reason, Sea Containers demolished Newhaven's only container crane. Lack of a cold store for refrigerated cargoes doesn't help, either.

The only future for Newhaven is as a regenerated port, otherwise it will simply become a pretty dormitory town for Brighton and Hove with sea views.

Perhaps that is what East Sussex County Council, Lewes District Council, Seeda and the Newhaven Economic Partnership have in mind.

-Edward Crowley, Rookery Way, Seaford