A business centre has opened in Burgess Hill to meet the needs of the town's growing business community and create jobs.

The Forum, in London Road, has been launched by Topcentre, which also runs the Brighton Business Centre.

The centre has 18 serviced offices of varying sizes and leasehold space up to 1,800sqft.

It can also provide a virtual office service for companies needing a business address and phone answering service.

Centre manager Nerys Lucas said: "We've had a good response so far.

"We pre-let more than 30 per cent of the space during the renovation works so when we opened on September 1 four companies moved in immediately."

Two more companies will move into serviced offices this month and a team of solicitors will be occupying some of the leasehold space from November.

The companies represent a wide range of sectors including business and financial services, hospitality and events management and print and media.

Ms Lucas said the centre should create between 80 and 100 jobs when it is full.

She said many of the people now working there were already based in and around Burgess Hill but that the centre was enabling them to bring business back to the town.

"A lot of the people working here are local but previously they had been commuting up to London to do business or working from home because of the cost of space in other locations.

"You see lots of them walking and cycling to work, which is nice."

Ms Lucas said the centre had just signed its first virtual office client and that she hoped it would be able to match the Brighton Business Centre, which has about 100 companies using virtual offices.

For more details, contact Nerys Lucas on 01444 240100.

Thursday September 11, 2003