Announcement on Chichester bus depot

Chichester residents should find out in the autumn what the district council would like to do with the city’s bus station and depot.

Plans to build a new depot in Terminus Road have been known since October as efforts continue to move forward with the Southern Gateway project.

But there has been uncertainty over what will actually happen to the old sites on Basin Road.

The Southern Gateway is a district council project to redevelop the area around the bus station, working with the county council and other landowners.

A master-plan was adopted in 2017 but, over time, the project has shrunk as a lot of the landowners have pulled out, largely as a result of the pandemic.

Jonathan Brown, deputy leader of the council, said that details would be released in the autumn laying out what the council would like to do, not only with the bus sites, but also the Basin Road car park and East Pallant House.

But nothing will be set in stone, no decisions will be made at that time – and probably won’t be for quite a while. Mr Brown said details were still being worked out – and whatever is drawn up, the whole thing would still need to be given planning permission.

He added: “What we have been doing is getting some viability information that we can then use to come up with a plan for the area.”

Along with the plans to build a new depot, there are also plans for bus stops and shelters with real-time passenger information at 11 sites around the railway station, Avenue de Chartres and Southgate.

On top of that, the aim is to improve the link between the railway station and Avenue de Chartres by building new walking and cycle paths.

East Pallant House is the council’s current home – one which it has been considering leaving since 2022. Since the pandemic, the number of people working from home has seen the Grade-II listed building become too large for the council’s needs.