A repaired lock has been officially reopened after more than a year out of action.

The Prince George Lock at Shoreham is expected open for business by the beginning of March after repair work costing an estimated £500,000 was completed.

The opening of the lock will mean movement of leisure craft at Shoreham Port will return to normal.

Rod Johnstone, Shoreham Port’s chief executive, said: “The new lock gate is much stronger than the original and has been manufactured to the highest standards.

“I would like to put on record our thanks to all of the yacht owners for their patience and understanding since we introduced the new traffic management system, which saw leisure craft sharing the main commercial lock in and out of the port.”

Dean Sporn, regional director of Dean and Dyball Civil Engineering, which carried out the replacement, said: “We were delighted to be involved in restoring the lock to its full functionality.”

The original lock suffered major structural failure on January 25 last year.

Following an investigation into its failure, the cause was found to be a latent defect in the design.

Port bosses had investigated the possibility that wood from the stricken cargo ship Ice Prince, which ran aground off the coast of Devon in January 2008, might have damaged it, although no evidence to support this was found.