Devolution comes to West Sussex. What does it mean?

The announcement has been made that under the government’s devolution programme, there will be a huge re-organisation of councils across Sussex.

What does this mean for the people of the Adur area, and our quest to get the cycle infrastructure we need?

For those of us in the Adur area, this will mean the disappearance of the current Adur District Council and West Sussex County Council. Instead, we will be governed by a unitary authority, one of three covering the whole of Sussex. The authority will cover everything in our area from highways to planning, education to refuse collection. In addition, there will be an elected mayor to oversee the new councils across West Sussex, East Sussex and Brighton & Hove.

In the seven years since we founded Shoreham-By-Cycle, we have learned that local government holds the key to the overdue infrastructure improvements that are missing from our streets. We have attended dozens of meetings with councillors and officers from both these councils, as well as Lancing Parish Council. We have worked hard with them and we are appreciative of those officers and councillors who have cooperated with us in good faith to look at ways to improve transport choices in Shoreham, Southwick, Lancing and Sompting.

However, it has not been easy, and even after years of hard work, no meaningful cycling infrastructure improvement has yet taken place under the current system.

It’s no secret that we are frustrated with the slow pace of change. It is deeply unhelpful that planning decisions are handled by ADC while highways decisions are managed by WSCC, often out of sync with each other. The results of this misalignment can be seen by the delay in a long-proposed and much-needed cycleway along Shoreham’s A259. We find the quantity and verbosity of WSCC consultations agonising, with projects such as Upper Shoreham Road being consulted upon over and over again before being abandoned for political reasons.

Our hope is that a new council structure may improve the situation. With only one layer to our local government, we hope to see better co-ordination between planning and highways functions, as two interdependent aspects of urban change. We hope to see a faster pace, and more bravery when it comes to bringing beneficial improvements. Above all, we hope for leadership – the leadership that is needed to recognise the problem, listen to experts, recognise opportunities and do what is needed to improve local people’s lives, regardless of short-term politicking.

We hope to participate fully in any community process that will shape the way the new council operates. There simply has to be a change. A new council must mean a new culture and a new way of doing things. We cannot go on in the current mode of lots of talk, plenty of consultation, but very little action.

Let’s welcome this opportunity to reduce delay and bureaucracy, while taking a firm view that a new authority for our area of Sussex must have a genuine culture of engagement that is focussed on real action.