“The worst level crossing in the UK” is racking up Twitter followers faster than it frustrates Sussex motorists.
The Worthing crossing started life on the social networking site by telling the world that “not many people like me, but I set up a Twitter account any way, I’m West Worthing Crossing, and I’m the worst in the UK”.
The online campaign is the brainchild of IT expert Tom Brennan who has set up a Twitter account under the name of the West Worthing Crossing in a bid to improve it.
The 26-year-old was inspired to make a change when he realised everyone hated the crossing.
Mr Brennan said residents complained that crossing barriers seemed to be down a disproportionate amount of time.
He also claimed that at times traffic waited up to 30 minutes for the crossing to clear.
Following his first tweet at 8.30am on Wednesday, February 8 he managed to rack up more than 100 followers in his first 12 hours.
Mr Brennan, of Canterbury Road, Worthing, said he was inspired by Worthing-based Dan Thompson, who gathered together an army of 12,000 volunteers to clean up London following the summer riots from just one tweet.
He said: “I was brought up in Worthing and most people I’ve spoken to really don’t like this crossing because it seems to be constantly down.
“I wanted to get as many people as possible involved because we have more power as a group.
“I wanted to take a stand and start a movement rather than just having a moan about it and I wanted to do it with a bit of humour.
“This is the modern-day equivalent of going to people’s doors with a pen and a notepad and getting signatures on a petition."
A Network Rail spokesman said the level crossing was worked by operators at Lancing signal box via CCTV.
He said trains could only pass a signal once the level crossing gates were down and the crossing was clear.
Some crossings had marginally longer waits if these signals were further away from the crossings although the average time for a train to pass through a crossing of this type is three minutes.
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