Traders hit by delays to flood defences in Littlehampton

The estimated completion date of the Environment Agency’s £14.5m flood defence scheme was last week pushed back from autumn until winter.

Previously, the EA had hoped the work would be finished by the spring, then summer, of this year.

While the work is seen by businesses and residents in the area to be essential, traders have been hit hard by the closure of Pier Road and Arun Parade to vehicles.

With further roadworks required after the flood defences are built, disruption to trade in Pier Road is unlikely to end until the beginning of 2015 at the earliest.

Paul Power, director of Coastal Cycles, in Pier Road, said the road closures caused by the work had been ‘devastating’ for business.

He said: “Our shop has been devastated.

“We have had to go to all sorts of measures to try to keep our doors open. We need to get rid of this view people are earning a fortune from compensation, because it’s not true. We need our customers to come back and come back in the volumes they used to come in.”

For the full story, read the Littlehampton Gazette on Thursday, February 20.