Homes, Jobs, Leisure and Green Space
Inside Your Town
Building Worthing – coming out of Covid –
Kevin Jenkins is a local councillor. In his role he has oversight of a wide portfolio including the economy, regeneration, foreshore, tourism and planning. kevin.jenkins@worthing.gov.uk
Worthing is great place to live, work and play. To build on this, families and businesses need to flourish in what is very constrained space between the South Downs National Park (SDNP) and the English Channel.
sites around the town; whilst also ensuring that important open green spaces such as Brooklands, the two Goring Gaps and local parks are maintained. You can read more about the draft Local Plan here: https://www.adurworthing.gov.uk/worthing-localplan/about/
With a population of over 110,000, and along with other towns across the south coast, there is an overwhelming pressure for new homes in our town. The recently published draft Worthing Local Plan identified, that with 24% of the Borough falling within the boundary of the SDNP and less than 10% of the Borough being undeveloped land, delivering the anticipated number of homes is unlikely. Focus, therefore, is on making the best use of the land that we already have. This includes sites such as Union Place, Teville Gate, West Durrington and other smaller
Building a town isn’t just about homes. People need jobs, leisure and access to services. Building is starting on a new NHS health facility in the heart of the town at the civic centre site, which marks a key component of creating just that. A collaboration between the council and four key health providers in the town has brought this about, which will improve capacity and transform access to services for tens of thousands of people in a stateof-the-art facility. Worthing is well supported by many international, national and locally grown companies,
providing vital jobs to local people. Businesses are bulging at the seams and looking to expand their sites, to grow and to provide more jobs. To help them, the Council has secured government funding to remediate land at the old amenity tip site at Decoy Farm and has purchased land at Southdown View Road; with plans to work with businesses to build new factory facilities, to enable them to grow even more and bring a welcome boost to the prosperity of the town. Making the best use of our open space assets for leisure is so important for our wellbeing and to promote healthy activities and allowing everyone, families and children to thrive. Brooklands Park is undergoing a major period of change to become a ‘country style’ park in the heart of Worthing. Providing healthy activity and improved play provision, but also enabling people to explore nature and biodiversity, which is so important in these times of climate change.
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