Sussex Transport has a fleet of vehicles ranging from Sprinter vans to 7.5 tonne, 18 tonne, Artic trucks and HIABs.
Based on the Lancing Business Park, just along the coast from Brighton, we are ideally placed to serve Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and London, but regularly find ourselves much further afield thanks to our reputation and knowledge of the UK.
Lancing Business Park is a Business Improvement District (known as a BID)
Competitive town and city centres are vital to the health of the UK economy and if businesses within that town centre (or in our case, Business Park) agree a vision and common objectives, then this can be achieved.
Business Improvement Districts provide an opportunity for local business communities to develop a vision and strategy, pool their resources and deliver activities which have a significant impact on the trading environment in which they operate.
By the beginning of 2008 over 60 Business Improvement Districts had been established across England, Wales and Scotland.
Sussex Transport is proud to work within a BID and although most BIDs are currently in town centres, it is anticipated that in future more and more BIDs will be developed in non-centres, whether they are industrial estates or business parks, such as ours.
Working within a BID has distinct advantages; networking closely with other businesses within in the Business Park which often benefits each of us; organising team orientated events such as indoor go carting at Team Sport and seminars organised by the Business Park Co-ordinators which are relevant to the businesses on the Estate, all play a part of making us feel part of a community and working together to improve business locally.
Before it was Lancing Business Park, the area that the businesses now occupy was the Southern Railway Works – a significant local employer.
In 1953 The Southern Railway Works employed 1,750 people and was founded as an overflow to works being carried out in Brighton. Because of the rural situation of the new factory, the railway operated a special daily train from Brighton for the workforce. This became known as the Lancing Belle.
During the Second World War the works was kept busy repairing bomb damaged carriages and wagons and converting carriages to mobile hospitals to support the army during the D-Day invasion. The works were also involved in constructing tail planes for gliders for the invasion.
The closure of the works was announced in 1963. There were 1,683 people employed at the time. Around 800 of those lived in Worthing, Lancing, Shoreham and Sompting. According to that week’s edition of the WorthingHerald, the workforce was “shocked and dumbfounded” by the news. Those that remember working there in 1963 speak of the closure as being devastating, with people queuing outside the labour exchange and people being laid off.
Their only saving grace was that when a furniture manufacturers took over the main carriage building, they started taking people on as there were plenty of skilled workers who needed jobs.
It was Dennis & Robinson, now Manhattan Furniture, who took over the old carriage works building in Blenheim Road and part of the arrangement for them moving to Lancing in 1965 was that they would employ a number of the existing railway workers at the time.
West Sussex County Council purchased the entire site in 1964 which then became the Churchill Industrial Estate (and later changing names to the existing Lancing Business Park). The buildings were then converted into factory units and new ones built. Manhattan Furniture still operate from Lancing Business Park, in fact the original carriage shop with its clock, still stands to this day!
Sussex Transport have been on the Business Park in Lancing since 1997 and have been going from strength to strength, recently acquiring further warehouse space in Crawley and several new vehicles to cope with demand.
Lancing Business Park have a facebook page – why not ‘like’ them and follow news and information at www.facebook.com/lancingBID as well as our page www.facebook.com/sussextransport
