This is why completion of the St Leonards Queensway Gateway Road has been delayed again

Work was ongoing to design and approve a traffic-light controlled junction, which would complete the Queensway Gateway Road’s connection to the A21 in Sedlescombe Road North.

It was expected to be completed this autumn at the earliest but Sea Change Sussex announced this week that the project has been delayed further.

Originally slated for completion by November 2016, the project has been beset by a series of delays at various stages. The majority of the road was completed in March 2019 with only the final section, connecting it to Sedlescombe Road North, now remaining unfinished.

Sea Change Sussex said the outstanding works should only take eight to 10 weeks once approvals are given.

But the company said it has still not received approvals to do this and added information has come to light which has caused its management team ‘serious concerns’ about the project’s funding.

A Sea Change Sussex spokesperson said: “We’ve recently discovered that SELEP and East Sussex County Council elected members were told in 2015 the project could be delivered for £6 million instead of the £15 million budget we’d originally been aware of.

“It appears this is because the county council said it had ‘alternative engineering options for delivering the scheme which have driven down the overall scheme costs’.

“But, as the party responsible for engineering design and construction, we can confirm that, in 2015, no alternative engineering options or designs existed and no costs had been ‘driven down’. Detailed design work didn’t start until July 2016.

“With awareness of these claims about substantial cost savings, we’ve been asking over the last four months how such savings were identified, but have received no answer to this question.

“But despite all this, we’re as frustrated as everyone else by the delays and extremely keen to see the road completed and open for the benefit of the community. So, we’ve suggested a new way forward to East Sussex County Council.

“We’ve proposed that it contracts directly with a construction firm for the final works and that we project manage them, instead of Sea Change Sussex being the contracting party. We hope we can agree this as a way forward to get the road finally open as soon as possible.”

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