Dear fellow Worthing residents

As some of may have noticed we have been getting our site ready for the public to use and enjoy. In fact it was so busy last Bank Holiday Monday we opened our gates and let cars park for free to elevate some of the congestion. It was wonderful to meet and greet so many visitors to our great town.

Overview

In 2024 we applied for a new premises licence (the ability to sell alcohol). The application was agreed by the Police and the Worthing Licencing Department. However, due to the number of objections received from residents, spearheaded by our MP and Councillors, a public meeting was called in March 2024. Our application was refused. No surprise there. In fact, we were the only Worthing premises to be refused a licence in 2024. We appealed the refusal to the Magistrates Court and in order to receive a fair (and unbiased) hearing the Magistrates Court agreed to hear our appeal in Horsham.

The day before our hearing Worthing Borough Council  served us with a notice of costs that if we lost the appeal, we would have to pay Worthing Council £‘000’s in legal fees. Worthing Council hired a top Barrister, who specialised in Licencing Law, to represent them. I represented us.

Our appeal was successful (way to go!) and we were granted our licence. Not because we showed Worthing Councillors to be fraudulent and biased, we were granted our appeal because we were able to demonstrate we could meet the four licencing objectives. This should have happened at the hearing in Worthing a year previously. Fortunately for the town, many of the councillors who presided over our hearing have since been replaced following local elections.

Present Day

The heart of our operation is the belief Worthing is a fabulous place to live and work. We are fast becoming a go-to town for young sporty families. Look out for our slogan – it will be on the big A board soon. As our land is the actual border between Worthing and Ferring it will be the first thing you see as you enter Worthing.

I believe a business can thrive by giving priority to local suppliers and making every effort to support and promote local businesses. With this in mind, the heart of our new operation is the Kite Bar, where we will serve only locally produced craft beers, wines and spirits.

There will be picnic benches, chairs and umbrellas onsite. If demand necessitates, we will provide more seating and umbrellas.

There will be a boules area. Sadly, for now, no shaded sandpit for young children to play in. The Head of Planning at Worthing Borough Council believes a shaded sandpit, for children to play in and a tumble-down mound (see here), constitutes operational development. For now we do still plan to get some Shetland ponies onsite for the children to take supervised rides on and disagree this constitutes horse racing and will lead to unlicenced gambling. We are however worried, if too many children and members of the public enjoy themselves, Councillors will try and stop our operation. It is obvious most Councillors have never read this document. See here. Page 20, section 1.44

Big shout out to Jewson’s Worthing who kindly agreed to sponsor the children’s play sand in the children’s sandpit. One day…

When the bar is open there will be a defibrillator onsite.

Our operation will initially use a mixture of solar power and a fossil-fuel. As we move forward, we will be installing more solar panels (out of site) so that we can wean ourselves off fossil fuel and be 100% green energy. For example, our Juice Bar is already 100% solar. All our CCTV is 100% solar. We are calculating our carbon footprint, for the whole operation, and will plant  trees along our perimeter to offset our generation.

All our products on site will be sold in Vegware (and similar) and any organic waste we create will be composted on site and used to grow products (like carrots) next year. Everything on site we sell will be purchased through local Sussex businesses only.

We have our own toilet block, which will have a nappy changing facility, four ladies’ toilets, three gents’ urinals and two gents’ toilets. We will have open air showers for the kite surfers and brave sea swimmers to use. Unlike Southern Water our toilet tanks will be emptied by a reputable company and not flushed in to the sea. 

No beach bar would be complete without burgers, hot dogs and carrot dogs. We will invite other complimentary food trailers onsite. 

Everything on the site is temporary and when the season ends it will all be packed away.

I would like to offer residents regular site meetings so we are able to listen, discuss and debate and act on any valid concerns the community may have. 

Thank you

Chris Dixon