Masses of work on proposals still to be done

The Arun District Council members agreed to support the current proposals by St Modwen.

But they stated the company needs to do much more work before its detailed designs are made public in the early summer.

The councillors staged ten votes at the meeting of the full council (Wednesday March 5) which related to different aspects of the 100m-plus scheme.

They agreed:

by 26 votes, with seven against and four abstentions, St Modwen should move the library only if the Regis Centre site enabled a better service to be offered the new service could include a visitor information centre and a one-stop shop for council services;

by 31 votes with eight against and two abstentions to demand St Modwen justify any increase in flats above the 180 intended for Hothamton and 168 for the Regis Centre;

by 28 votes to six against, and five abstentions that any landmark tower for Hothamton must be of a sufficiently high architectural design quality to justify its inclusion and that the chance of using the top floor for public viewing should be explored;

by 37 votes to one against and three abstentions to support any realignment of the seafront to create a lido if it was backed by technical and engineering experts;

agreed by 27 votes to seven against and five abstentions to welcome in principle the closure of part of The Esplanade. But an acceptable route for the displaced traffic has to be found;

agreed by 29 votes with none against and five abstentions to register a concern about potential traffic and congestion caused by the seafront closure;

agreed unanimously by 43 votes to nil that work should continue to find an operator for a new theatre/cinema;

agreed unanimously by 38 votes to nil for plenty of office space in the Hothampton redevelopment;

agreed unanimously, with 43 votes in favour, that a hotel operator be secured for the Regis Centre replacement building.

The remaining vote concerned noting the generally positive comments from the Regional Design Panel about the proposals.

The voting generally split along party political lines, with the Conservatives broadly in favour and Liberal Democrats and Labour abstaining or voting against.