Thirty storeys is too high for town

The prospect of the skyscraper on the Hothamton site as the town's biggest building was strongly criticised by those who went along to the display last Friday afternoon.

Pagham resident Marlene Smoothey said: "I hate the high tower idea '“ that's absolutely horrendous.

"Fitzleet House is high enough. It is so unnecessary to make the new tower twice as high and to have that sort of skyline in Bognor.

"It's not in keeping with the rest of the town."

Susan Calcutt (46), of Felpham, said: "I'm not sure about 30 storeys. It's too high for this kind of town.

"Fitzleet House has 15 storeys and I don't mind something slightly bigger than that. But to double it is something I can't really see here."

North Bersted man Douglas Fleming (58) stated: "I don't like 30 storeys. It's too much. Fitzleet House is high enough."

Closing some of The Esplanade and changing the shape of the seafront was the other main talking point at the exhibition.

But opinion was split and the main issue was how the road network would cope with the displaced traffic.

Susan Calcutt said: "I can see the reason for wanting to close the seafront to make it a more friendly area to visit and to have more leisure attractions.

"But I know a lot of people drive along there. If there are going to have to go round the town, that is going to cause more traffic chaos on the A259."

Barry Smoothey added: "How will people get from west Bognor to east Bognor if The Esplanade is closed?

"To send the traffic all the way round will cause congestion in one place."

Douglas Fleming said: "The alternative route needs to be a dual carriageway. What the developers are proposing is not effective enough from what I can see."

But he said he fully supported changing the shape of the beach.

"It's a good idea. A lot of countries abroad are doing that to link their town centres to their beaches," he commented.

For town centre worker Michael Rowland (46), from Littlehampton, the thought of a curved beach was to be welcomed.

He said: "I found the most exciting bit about the exhibition to be the changes to The Esplanade.

"Taking away the cars and having a curved beach are good ideas.

"Go to most seafronts and they are straight. To have some that are different makes them more interesting."

But he had one complaint about the regeneration. "It's not big enough," he moaned.

"If all the work goes ahead, you will be able to stand the High Street and not know that anything has changed.

"The Queensway is abysmal and that's not going to change. Until that sort of architecture alters, Bognor will still be the same old Bognor."