West Wittering's beach café plans move forward

Plans for a '˜dynamic' new beach café at West Wittering have taken a step forward.
The current café at West Wittering beachThe current café at West Wittering beach
The current café at West Wittering beach

Over the past year, members of the West Wittering Estate have gathered information to help create a multifunctional building which can cope with the constant change in footfall.

Now, it is over to architects Morgan Carn to draw up visual plans.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

James Crespi, chief executive of the West Wittering Estate, said: “The demand for the café is so up and down throughout the year, we are looking to build a café that can take 15,000 people in the summer and 15 people in the winter.

“While we have no detailed timetable yet, we aim to brief architect Morgan Carn, undertake a design process, review proposals and run local consultations over the course of 2017 and hope to have a planning application submitted by the end of the year.”

James continued to say that the committee hopes to have a visual plan of the café in two or three months, with the aim being to have the building up and running by the end of next year.

Proposals for a new café were dropped at the beginning of 2016 after facing strong objections from residents, including the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards who stated that the ‘enormous’ two-storey plan would ‘dominate the area and spoil its character’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

James said: “In our last plans we were looking at part of the café being a restaurant, but that’s not what we are about now.

“We want a beach café that is going to be of the land and practical.

“It has got to be a very dynamic building – we need to be able to serve people quickly and as efficiently as possible.

“We have spent the last year gathering as much data as possible, not just about what people want in the summer but what they want in the winter.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Before we were thinking about how it will operate during the summer months and scale it down in the winter but now we are realising we need to start small and think about how to scale it up in the summer.”

What do you think? We want to hear your views.

Send an email [email protected] along with a daytime telephone number.

Related topics: