Former Lec site to generate more jobs

The promise of more work for residents has been made for the former Lec Refrigeration site on Shripney Road.

Landowner Sime Darby London Ltd has pledged to restore employment to the ten acres which have become an eyesore since they were last used in December 2003.

A director of the company, Raof Daud, said it was difficult to predict how many jobs would be produced by developing the site until the final uses were decided.

He cautioned it could be 18 months before the decaying buildings were pulled down and a further three to five years before the redevelopment was completed.

But the company had been busy dealing with interested companies wanting to stake a claim to the property.

Enough commercial interests have come forward to fill the ten acres almost four times over.

They include national high quality food supermarkets, national bulky goods retailers, a car dealer, several builders' merchants, a business hotel operator for a 50-100 bedroom building and a self storage firm.

Mr Daud said: "These are expressions of interest. There's possibly not a week that goes by without some new expression of interest from one company or another."

Housebuilders have also been in contact about the possibility of creating a new housing estate there. But Mr Daud told Arun District Council's Bognor Regis sub-committee on Monday that his company would respect the desire of residents and councillors to provide more work.

"There may be some affordable housing to make it a viable mix of development on the site. But it is unlikely we will pursue a full residential option any further," he stated. The prospect of more housing without more work was the least favoured of the three development options which Sime Darby put on display in Bognor in early February. The others were a mix of housing and employment and business use only.

Sime Darby received some 300 comments from the exhibition, a workshop and talks to various groups.

The most common themes were the need for good quality retailers, a desire to see highly skilled employment there and respect of the site's role as a gateway to the town.

Mr Daud said Sime Darby was about to start its second phase of consultation. This would lead to a draft development brief to be put to the district council for approval.

Once the final brief had been backed, the land use guidelines would be available for developers who wanted to buy the land. Sime Darby is likely to sell the land for another firm to build on it.

But Mr Daud warned that its use for four decades for building fridges and freezers would cost a lot to clean up.

The ground had been contaminated by chemicals, the buildings contained asbestos and they needed to be demolished.