I am always delighted to engage with local residents and businesses from across the constituency and welcomed the chance to meet with members of the new and growing Burgess Hill Business Association recently.
I congratulate all of these independent traders who are working so hard and keeping positive, being inventive and inspiring with their daily dedication to Burgess Hill and growing its vibrancy and supporting the community. Let’s support them all by shopping local. Alongside listening to their invaluable insights and experiences we also discussed a wide range of topics including roadworks and their thoughts on improving the town centre.
Burgess Hill has so many wonderful thriving businesses both within the town centre and further afield in the local business estates so this makes the status of the town centre all the more disappointing.
The Martlets & The Future:
Let me provide some background to the ownership and development of Burgess Hill Town Centre and details of the support I have offered MSDC as the freeholder. Before I do this, however, may I assure you that I completely agree this is a totally unacceptable situation and constituents deserve so much more.
Much of the Town Centre was bought by independent investors around 2011 as an already ‘distressed asset’, meaning that whilst it had value, the existing owners needed a prompt sale so sold it for less than its value at the time. One of the buyers is a company called, New River Retail (NRR), who had experience of developing this type of asset. I understand that whilst they had ‘big plans’ for the site these have not come to fruition due to financial constraints experienced, more recently as a result of the pandemic and the change in the retail environment and the growth in online shopping. Added to this some of the prospective businesses who had intended to come to the refurbished site have since collapsed, and without attracting new businesses to the centre, plans can often not progress.
Mid Sussex District Council (MDSC), as the local planning authority, had approved plans for its redevelopment and have worked diligently alongside NRR to try to bring forward a new and rejuvenated centre. Unfortunately, the stalling point has been funds to get this off the ground which NRR cannot, as the owner of the site, commit to at this current time.
The LUF Bid
The Government’s Levelling Up agenda provided the opportunity to bid on financial support for local projects across the country. MSDC have bid twice for dedicated funds for the Burgess Hill Town Centre redevelopment from DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) and I have extensively supported them to do this, alongside our neighbouring MPs, Andrew Griffith MP of the Arundel & South Downs constituency and Jeremy Quin MP of the Horsham constituency. Sadly, they have not been successful in either the first or second rounds of funding, however MSDC have been complimented on the quality of their submissions. They are currently pulling together what their latest options are at this stage and I will continue to support them with this.
It is absolutely essential, in light of the patience shown by constituents and with all the other exciting projects coming forward in the area, that a solution is found for the redevelopment of Burgess Hill Town Centre which so vitally needs and deserves to be reinvigorated as the heart of our community in Burgess Hill.
Some constituents have asked, if I have any personal connections to New River Retail and this has been something put across the internet in order to question my personal integrity and look like I have some ‘skin-in-the-game’. Click here for an article originally published on my website in November 2019 which provides clarity that I do not have any conflict of interest despite social media inferring differently. All I have is the desire to see progress for our community.