Just weeks after work started on a new steel processing plant in Shoreham Harbour, officials are being asked to finalise reports on the possibilities for housing and transport there.
Brighton and Hove City Council is working with Adur District Council and West Sussex County Council to regenerate the port and surrounding area.
At a meeting yesterday, Brighton and Hove cabinet member Councillor Ayas Fallon-Khan also asked officers to prepare a “scheme of delegation”.
This will allow a project team to be set up by the three councils, with funding and with a view to speeding up progress.
The regeneration has been headed until recently by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA).
It set a target of building 10,000 homes on the port site – a figure which some observers said was a “top-down target” and which they regarded as unrealistic.
The limited access – by Hove Lagoon – and poor transport links were among the concerns expressed by sceptics.
While some homes have been built, the most noticeable work at the harbour in the past month is next to the power station.
Now the three councils are heading the regeneration and trying to agree the joint working arrangements – and they are nearing a formal agreement.
The news comes as Parker Steel begins building a processing plant which is expected to be complete within 15 months.
And the port management has expressed its view that the harbour should continue to operate as a working port.
A second power station there – in Fishersgate – is also in the early planning stages.
And work is under way around Southwick Station to improve road and rail links to and from the area.
Councillor Fallon-Khan, the cabinet member for enterprise, employment and major projects, said that the scheme of delegation would enable more visible progress to take place.
He urged officers to report back to him promptly on the flood risks, the number of homes that could realistically be built and the related transport issues.
Some of that housing is expected at the eastern – Aldrington Basin – end of the harbour and in south Portslade.
Councillor Fallon-Khan is expected to give Brighton and Hove City Council’s backing to the new working arrangements with Adur and West Sussex – the scheme of delegation – next month.
