~ Letter highlights safety problems & backs demands for enquiry ~
We have today sent an open letter to all East Sussex County Council councillors highlighting serious safety concerns about the newly-opened Queensway Gateway road.
The letter also reveals important points about the development of the scheme and backs the fast-growing number of calls for an enquiry into why the road took so long to build and caused so much disruption to the community.
We had previously been developing the Queensway Gateway road on behalf of the County Council and completed 90% of the scheme by 2020. The road was then delayed because the County Council refused to promote a compulsory purchase order (CPO) for the then-necessary acquisition of the Bartletts car showroom site. This necessitated a junction design change and Sea Change Sussex put forward a proposal in 2023 to complete the final phase of the project – to join the road to the A21 – via a 16-week set of works, largely avoiding closures on the A21.
However, in March 2024, having been awarded £2.5 million of government funding to complete the road, East Sussex County Council decided it would finish the project itself, working with construction firm Balfour Beatty Living Places. The Council said it would open the road by December 2024 but did not do so until 30 September 2025, and even then in a partially-complete state.
Our letter to East Sussex County councillors, while welcoming the opening of the road:
- highlights that the road has posed a significant risk to public safety by being opened without essential signage required by National Highways’ Road Safety Audit of September 2021, of which East Sussex County Council had full visibility
- discloses that the County Council declined our offer to license our plans and core supporting information, which would have made completing the road much faster, less costly and less disruptive to the community
- states that, despite declining our offer, the County Council appears to have based their works on early versions of our plans anyway
- highlights that the County Council has adapted the road embankment we built in a way for which it was not designed, risking its stability and invalidating any warranties
- supports demands for a detailed enquiry to answer fundamental questions and ensure full transparency about the way the scheme has been managed from its inception in 2013 onwards. We have also appended to the letter a list of the questions which we believe should be addressed by such an enquiry.
You can see here a copy of our open letter to the county councillors and our accompanying list of questions for an enquiry.