The Regeneration Game

Richard Bingham takes a look at three very different buildings all of which aim to contribute to the economic development of Shoreham.

We live in something of a dormitory town. One third of employed residents leave Adur district each morning to go to work elsewhere. Brighton, Worthing, London – everyone is on the move. Or sitting in a traffic jam.

So attracting new jobs to Shoreham is an important objective for the town. Especially since, according to Adur’s own figures for 2022, Shoreham scored just half the national average of active businesses.

Offices, retail space, distribution – all these activities need to be accommodated.

There have been successes. In 2019, technology company Focus relocated from Southwick to their new corporate headquarters in Ham Road, a stone’s throw from the railway station. The new office building allowed them to increase their workforce to 450 people.

So how have we done since then?

Wharf 21

The Joint Area Action Plan for the Western Harbour Arm envisaged a total of 16,000m² of new employment generating floor-space in Adur (2019). At Wharf 21 alone there is 2,707 square metres of commercial floorspace at ground floor level.

But will it ever be filled? Does it offer the right kind of accommodation?

I recently spoke to a chief executive of a Sussex-based organisation looking to move offices and relocate up to 40 jobs. They need around 3,000 square feet of accommodation and their current search area is Shoreham, Worthing and Haywards Heath.

On the face of it, the ground floor of Wharf 21 sounded just right. It was big enough for their needs and walkable to the railway station. Accompanied by staff representatives, their management team came to Shoreham to take a look.

They said no. The large number of pillars would have caused difficulties in configuring the empty space the way they needed. But the biggest deterrent was the lack of amenities on the doorstep and that depressing view over the congested A259 towards the light industrial sheds behind.

On such a large site, all these things could have been avoided. But the builders of Wharf 21 are housing developers, not office developers. They care about the flats, not the offices.

Panattoni Park

To most Shorehamites, this development of warehouse and distribution sheds is notable for ruining views over the green gap surrounding the airport.

In fact, Panattoni is the world’s largest privately owned industrial developer, having developed 610 million sq ft to date.

The commercial logic was sound. We have all noticed the legions of delivery vans on our roads. With so many of us shopping online, there has been a boom in “last mile delivery”, which necessitates more warehousing closer to centres of population.

The agent for Panattoni Park boasts that it is “the ideal location for last mile delivery operations looking to address consumer markets clustering the south coast,” noting the proximity of the development to Shoreham, Worthing and, most importantly, Brighton.

However, to date there have been no takers for the units. The sheds are now rumoured to be up for sale.

Ropetackle

We have to go further back in time to discover Basepoint, the office development built as part of Ropetackle, a joint development by Berkely Homes and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). Interviewed by The Argus in 2006, SEEDA’s Paul Hudson, said: “Ropetackle has been a tremendous example of what regeneration is all about.”

The clock tower advertises the presence of Basepoint, an office company offering local businesses meeting rooms and serviced offices for rent. Companies located here range from start ups to larger concerns such as pharmaceutical firm Insmed.

“I’ve had a one-man band who began renting a meeting room for a couple of hours,” says Basepoint’s manager Anton Hamman, an ebullient South African who has made Shoreham his home for the last two decades. “He’s ended up renting offices long term because he has gone on to employ four people.”

This kind of flexibility is ideally suited to Adur, where the average size of employees per company is around nine. In addition, the retail unit on the ground floor of one of the Ropetackle buildings is currently leased by Giant, a successful bike shop that employs technicians and sale staff. There is an obvious ecological benefit in the increased use of cycles both for leisure and commuting.

Planning?

Like Wharf 21, Panattoni Park seems to be a speculative punt. At least it has a business case behind it, though: access to the A27 and M23 is good, and the location is close to centres of population and a skilled workforce.

Indeed, Wharf 21 seems to be a sop to the Council – a regeneration project in name only.

The latest site on the Western Harbour Arm to sell for flats is the Kwik Fit site on the Brighton Road. As with all the other developments along the Western Harbour Arm, the ground floor of the outline proposals features commercial office space to rent.

When I asked the developers whether they had done any research into the local market for office space, they said no. Their reply was that the ground floor reflected local authority planning policy.

Planning? What planning?

Richard Bingham