Eight bids share £250,000 to improve Bognor Regis

A community arts space, two music festivals and the town’s museum should benefit from a cash boost intended to revitalise Bognor Regis.

A total of 15 bids was submitted. Eight have won a slice of the £250,000 immediately available from Sainsbury’s to boost the town centre.

All applications were evaluated by the advisor to the town’s regeneration board, Richard McMann.

Mr McMann’s recommendations became public last Tuesday at Arun District Council’s regeneration sub-committee when he presented a report to a private meeting of the board last month.

“We have had some very interesting and exciting bids. As you can see from my report the allocation of some funds has been done so unconditionally and other unconditionally.

“In terms of the conditional allocation this has been done to allow for the development of ideas. Some of these projects are still in their infancy,” said Mr McMann.

He told councillors the successful bids were assessed on how they would positively contribute to at least one of five objectives.

These are to attract more spending customers and visitors to the town centre, increase spending in the town centre, improve the ‘offer’ of the town centre, improve its environment and to set it apart from others.

He said: “The words collaboration, cohesion and co-ordination were constantly applied to all assessments, the successful regeneration of Bognor Regis town centre can only be achieved by different sectors coming together - public, private and the community.”

The money forms half of the £500,000 Sainsbury’s is providing to the town to compensate for the impact its new store on Shripney Road might have on existing traders.

The sub-committee approved all Mr McMann’s recommendations.

The final decision on the bids - except for a £100,000 scheme to smarten up the town centre - will be taken by the council’s regeneration boss Norman Dingemans.

The remaining decision will go the next meeting of Arun’s full council for ratification.

A further £53,000 has yet to be allocated to schemes.

A second Sainsbury’s instalment of £250,000, due after the store opens, is to be spent on one larger single project.

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THE SUCCESSFUL BIDS

*£10,000 conditionally awarded to a proposed community arts centre at the former United Reformed Church in Linden Road. Music and drama performances will be held there as well as exhibitions.

*£20,000 has been reserved for Rox Music and Arts Festival. The money will be used to bring extra colour and style to the festival and attract a greater choice of music.

*£9,500 to allow the refurbishment of the Bognor Regis Museum to accommodate a Victorian bathing machine in an existing outbuilding.

*£7,000 to allow enhancements of illuminations in Waterloo Square to tie in with a county council project to replace street lights. *£3,000 is reserved to allow light and sound to be installed on the boating lake in Hotham Park.

*£100,000 was conditionally awarded to a project by Arun, Bognor and West Sussex councils working together to deliver a new vision and strategy for the town centre.

*£7,500 to the Bognor Regis Folk Festival 2013. Based in mainly in Hotham Park and the town centre, it is hoped this will become an annual event rebuilding the success of similar folk festivals held in the town in the 1980s.

*£5,000 reserved for a web-based marketing campaign which celebrates independent shops in the town centre.