Burgess Hill Town Council leader speaks of challenges the town is facing

The council leader spoke to the Middy ahead of a town council meeting last Wednesday (February 19), where councillors finally agreed on a new plan to bring a £5.5million arts centre scheme – the Beehive – to fruition – which is to replace Martlets Hall.

READ MORE: Renewed hope for Burgess Hill arts venue as councillors agree plan to ‘resell vision’

At the meeting, residents expressed their anger and frustration about the state of the town centre.

Revised £65million regeneration plans for Burgess Hill town centre were submitted in October last year and are due to be heard by Mid Sussex District Council’s planning committee.

New River’s first application to transform The Martlets Shopping Centre was approved by the district council back in 2016.

But the plans have been revised to include increased space for commercial leisure such as bowling, a revised layout of the library to accommodate a changing places toilet, a reduction and reconfiguration of some of the retail units to allow more units for independent retailers and an increased amount of residential units.

Mr Eggleston told the Middy: “To give New River credit they have moved Iceland into a new store, which is a very good store, Lidl has relocated and the library has opened so there is some progress. But clearly this part of the retail estate, where they’re in control, isn’t looking particularly great at the moment.

“If you look at the state of town centres and you look at the state of retail, it’s a difficult project to bring to market in the current retail climate and it isn’t just Burgess Hill, it is right across the country.

“I’ve been a resident of Burgess Hill for over 30 years so I am just as frustrated and impatient as anybody else to see this part of the town centre completed.

‘Regular conversations’

Mr Eggleston said the council have regular conversations with New River. He said he had hoped revised planning application would have gone to the district planning committee in February.

“My hope then was it was going to be March but that now looks doubtful as well,” he told the Middy, adding: “So it’s now looking likely to be April at the earliest.”

‘A lot of risk’

Mr Eggleston said he understood residents’ cynicism about the scheme. He commented: “I feel this just like other residents, the more it’s delayed the more people say ‘it’s not going to happen’.

“There is a lot of risk in this project and if I was a betting man today, I’d say we’re probably 50/50, which is not a nice thing to say and I really hope I am absolutely wrong.

“But there are too many factors at the moment which are even outside New River’s control. New River is totally dependent on retailers, leisure operators and hospitality operators coming on board.

“Perhaps their potential tenants are saying ‘we’ll come on board if they come on board’. We have got to clearly put pressure on them (and we are), work with them, try and see where there are things that the town council can do or the district council can do to try and open up the scheme and make it happen.”

‘Bridge-the-Gap’

He spoke of the council’s new ‘Bridge-the-Gap’ scheme: “Let’s assume that the New River scheme is going to progress, we know that even if it does we are going to be faced with two to two and a half years of disruption. So we’ve said as a council, what can we do to try and ease that burden for the town, which is why we came up with Bridge-the-Gap.

“Bridge the Gap is a fund of money that we have created out of the budget so we can invest in some additional activities in and around the town centre just to make it a more attractive proposition to come to.

“Potential tenants looking at Burgess Hill saying why should we come, could then say ‘it is a really active town with lots of events in the town centre which means that this town council is committed to helping create and sustain footfall’ because if you don’t have footfall they’re not going to come.”

He said the scheme will focus on adding to already successful events in the town, such as the sandpit, as well as new events.

“We have got a meeting in March with the National Market Traders Federation, so we are doing a piece of work around the idea of re-creating a monthly open market in the town.

“We are not going to rush into it, we are going to do the groundwork properly, scope it and see if it works and then hopefully get organisations in to back it.

“We are talking to New River about the possibility of taking a couple of units in The Martlets shopping centre itself to create what started out as an indoor market, but is probably, if it works, going to evolve into something that we are now calling Trading Spaces.

“For many independent traders, 750 sq ft of retail space is too expensive for them, so the idea is, if we took some space, we might be able to break them down to more incubator units and have it flexible enough so if a local retailer or community service provider wanted to come in for three days a week they could.

‘Responding to local demand’

“It is about responding to some local demand and helping a local independent retail community to flourish.

“Burgess Hill is a growing town with well over 30,000 people but, for example, it doesn’t have an independent greengrocer, that absolutely astounds me that a town of this size doesn’t have that.”