A vision for Worthing50.8098° N · 0.3717° W
Heritage
honoured. Future built.
From fifteen people who have staked their lives and livelihoods on this town.
From fifteen people who have staked their lives and livelihoods on this town.
Expertise across enterprise, planning, culture, hospitality, infrastructure, development, place and investment. Independent, senior and apolitical, with no personal agendas: informed guidance that benefits the town.
Future Worthing exists to bring independent, senior, specialist expertise together: to set a clear vision, strategy and narratives, unlock opportunities, and protect Worthing's interests through devolution and local government reorganisation. Our town should walk into the new landscape knowing exactly what it is and what it wants.
What is Worthing? What are its USPs? Is it a seaside town, or a town by the sea? And how does the seafront become the catalyst for investment and change?
A democratic public space connecting the whole town: a shared platform for life, culture, enterprise and civic identity. Treat it as core infrastructure and it becomes the catalyst for activity, interest and inward investment across Worthing.
Supporting everyday life: health, play, young people, gathering, inclusion, accessibility and community.
Expressing who Worthing is: creativity, heritage, identity, storytelling, public art, events and performance.
Building pride and connection: public realm, town-to-sea links, landmarks, shared spaces and stewardship.
Creating opportunity and value: visitor economy, hospitality, enterprise, jobs, skills, operators and investment.
Every opportunity makes the town cleaner, more welcoming, more legible, more loved.
Driven by the town's heritage, culture, people and places. Local partners first.
Every surface and space is an opportunity for world-class and local creativity.
Creative interventions and adaptive re-use that change perceptions, uses and audiences.
Every opportunity works harder: all ages, different times, more than one dimension of value.
Communicate greatness. Shout out, invite in: investment, participation, collaboration.
Grounded in agreed policy & evidence — Local Plan 2020–2036 · Growth Deal · Seafront Investment Plan · Pride in Worthing · Thriving Communities · Worthing Masterplan
Every member considered all eighteen initiatives one by one, scored how much each matters to Worthing's future, then ranked a top five: first choice worth five points, fifth worth one. Each priority pulls the threads through.
23 points · importance 7.8/10 · six members say propose now · the quickest win on the board
20 points · importance 8.6/10, the highest of any initiative · picked by seven members · four hands up to help
18 points · importance 7.1/10 · the intervention that puts Worthing on the map
17 points · importance 8.3/10 · five hands up to help, the most of any initiative
17 points · importance 7.8/10 · the enabler that speeds everything else up
Voted through the members' area · one initiative at a time, sealed until the deadline · full results and workings held by the group · the vote is now the mandate for Showcase 27
The vote became the mandate; the mandate is now a programme. Each project has a member lead and a working team drawn from the fifteen, and each runs the same 22-check framework until it is defined, tested, costed, funded, planned and protected. First delivery: AiR, the seafront shelter, with a permanently installed sauna and a coffee kiosk concession that keeps the site alive year-round.
The derelict West Buildings shelter becomes a cultural landmark that earns its own keep, every day of the year.
The highest-importance idea in the vote, taken from passion to proven, investable plan.
The intervention that changes how Worthing is seen, inwardly and outwardly.
Footfall, dwell time, health and wellbeing along the whole seafront.
The pragmatic-wins package, taken to the council as one deliverable project.
We take ideas and give them life. We build them into developed plans, prove their viability and make them deliverable. Then we provide the route to market for the town, with the council.
Lead, team, the idea, the Worthing story, and the case: residents, business, council value.
Model, ownership, money, investment, market, footfall, place and the practical route to delivery.
Risk, future-proofing, protected value and a timeline that works backwards from January 2027.
New leisure, active frontages and permeability through to Montague Street, plus the creative workspace Worthing desperately needs to keep its talent and attract creatives from Brighton, London and beyond. Sold off as ordinary development, it is gone for a generation.
Precedents: Peckham Levels & Bold Tendencies turned a disused car park into six floors of culture and workspace that transformed Peckham. Capital & Centric reimagined a 1960s car park as 111 homes over a landscaped atrium.
Promenade-facing heritage building, yards and industrial warehouses: an asset most places can only dream of. The catalyst that transforms a town, underpinned by education, training and pathways for young people, with ticketed culture, hires, F&B, sponsorship and patronage underwriting the business plan.
The evidence · Turner Contemporary · Canterbury Christ Church University · House of Commons CMS Committee · LGA
A derelict seafront shelter becomes a cultural landmark hosting an artists-in-residence programme, unlocking Worthing's creative and literary legacy. Precedent: A Room for London, host to David Byrne and Jarvis Cocker.
World-class sculpture at scale, extended by an art-led wayfinding trail. Like the Angel of the North or Blackpool's Comedy Carpet, one cultural intervention can change how a town is seen, inwardly and outwardly.
All-age play and activity nodes along the seafront: footfall, dwell time, health and wellbeing, and less anti-social behaviour. Joined by Teenage Kicks, a dedicated creative, physical and social space for young people with training and pathways built in.
A breakwater watersports lagoon: the hub for the south. A seafront tidal pool for wellbeing, safety and year-round swimming. The Lido reactivated for health, F&B and culture, and Grafton Green, a gallery-scale lawn with world-class murals telling Worthing's stories.
A7 — Grafton car park site
A11 — Stagecoach site
The Lido
West Buildings Shelter
The Rotunda
East Beach huts & promenade
Denton Gardens Shelter
Steyne Gardens & Shelter
Four further seafront shelters Thorn Road · Heene Terrace · Sea View Road · George Avenue
131 beach huts
8 grass lawns
Delivered and stewarded through symbiotic, productive partnerships, treating the seafront as one connected system, never a series of isolated projects.
Council car parks free from 3pm to drive evening footfall for the high street and seafront hospitality. A six-month trial including December trading, measured with real car-park data.
A simple 24-hour tariff, pay-on-exit or ANPR, and free overnight parking from 10pm to 7am. Makes arriving and staying in Worthing simpler, fairer and easier.
Pre-advice, free expert mentoring and a COVID-style anything-is-possible approach from the council for entrepreneurs and development, with KPIs and fast responses built in.
This is what fifteen people who love this town believe it can be. We are ready to help build it, with the council, with partners, with anyone who shares the ambition.
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