MP visits Lancing Business Park

MP Tim Loughton met company bosses at Lancing Business Park to discuss a series of improvements to the area. Firms based on the park have created a Business Improvement District, or BID, to deliver a series of improvements to their trading environment.

As part of the on-going work the BID group has successfully campaigned for a long-awaited road resurfacing project, helping to improve the quality of the local road system and has introduced a state-of-the-art CCTV system to drive down local crime. The main entrance to the park from Western Road has also been tidied up. The next BID project will see new signage put up around the park to make it easier to locate the different businesses on the site.

The BID group works by member firms paying a levy which is collected by the local authority but which is only used for projects designed to improve the business park. The BID enables members to have control over projects that directly affect the performance of their businesses. Those businesses who pay the BID levy have a voice and a vote.

East Worthing and Shoreham MP Mr Loughton and Cllr Angie Mills, West Sussex County Council member for Lancing, were key in securing additional funding for the road resurfacing project.

On a recent tour of the business park, Mr Loughton and Cllr Mills met local company owners to hear how the BID has helped improve their businesses.

Mr Loughton said: “This business park is of vital economic importance to the area and as such it is extremely welcome that the BID group has been set up and is successfully delivering key projects.The park is one of the biggest in the county and therefore has a wider regional importance which is why I am delighted to be supporting the businesses that operate here and which generate high levels of local employment.”

BID chairman Mike Punter, Managing Director of manufacturing firm ADDEV Parafix based on the business park, said: “The road resurfacing project is an excellent example of how the BID group can be influential in delivering real improvements and ultimately help us all improve the way we operate.On behalf of the BID, I would like to thank Tim Loughton and Cllr Mills for their support in what we are trying to achieve at Lancing Business Park, which is a major centre of commerce employing many hundreds of people.”

Lancing Business Park started life as sidings and carriage works for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. In the 1960s, when branch line railways and the British railway infrastructure was cut back, the carriage works became redundant.

The land and buildings were sold off as industrial development land and the Churchill Industrial Estate was born. The park was rebranded the Lancing Business Park before the BID group was established in 2008. The park is now home to 216 individual businesses and provides around 2,000 jobs. There are only 29 vacant units on the park.