HOMES in a seafront town’s newest and tallest tower will be predominately for local residents, according to its developer.

Roffey Homes managing director Ben Cheal said the £45 million Aquarena tower will be almost exclusively for Worthing or Sussex residents if the firms’ previous schemes sales patterns were repeated.

Conservationists have warned granting planning consent to the 15-storey scheme could be the turning point of an unwanted transformation of the traditional seaside town.

Concerns have also been raised that the new homes will price out Worthing residents and be snapped up by London commuters or foreign investors.

Roffey Homes said prices would range from £150,000 for a one bedroom shared ownership apartment up to £1million for a high-rise beach view penthouse.

Thirty per cent of the development’s 141 homes will be affordable housing including 20 social rent flats and 22 for shared ownership units.

The redevelopment of the former swimming pool site with a commercial space and beach facing café, anticipated to bring £15 million of economic benefits to the town, received more than 1,000 objections but councillors voted through the plans six to one.

Mr Cheal said work would begin “as soon as possible” on the site and would take three years to complete.

He said the firm would drop its appeal on the firm’s earlier 21-storey proposals, due to be heard this summer once planning permission had been issued.

The firm’s proposals for an eight-storey tower in Grand Avenue, after plans for an 11-storey tower were rejected in 2015, are expected to be decided next month.

Mr Cheal said: “On our previous developments, at least 50 per cent of purchasers are from Worthing – all downsizers and owner occupiers, in turn releasing their homes to families moving up the housing ladder.

“A further 30 per cent are typically from the surrounding area of Sussex, only 20 per cent or less come from out of the area, and in the main these are people coming back to Worthing.

"It is extremely rare that we sell to a second home owner.”

Worthing Society president Tony Malone said predicted economic benefits of the scheme were “pie-in-the-sky”.

He added: “It could all go like a pack of cards, what’s to stop the next site being developed as a tall building, the door is now open to developers.

“Worthing is not a high rise place, we’re an old-fashioned seaside town, and this just goes against what it stands for.

“The pressure is on council officers, either spoken or unspoken, to give greater consideration to these sites because of housing targets.”