Shoreham-by-Sea

SHOREHAM-BY-SEA Shoreham is a Victorian seaport, which still imports up to two million tonnes of cargo each year. The High Street, which has the River Adur running along the bottom of it, has basic shops for day-to-day needs, and the Holmbush Centre has brought Marks & Spencer and Tesco to the town. Shoreham is relatively free from hotels and B&Bs and does not feel like a seaside resort. It has a sandy beach at low tide, and a popular pit-stop for wildfowl in the Widewater, a lagoon behind a man-made shingle bank. Shoreham Airport (whence the first commercial flight was made in this country) still runs charter flights and is the base for several flying schools. Across the river on the shingle spit is the site of what was once Bungalow Town – a colony of wooden huts, made largely from disused railway carriages, which were occupied by the London Music Hall fraternity. Some early films were made there, but most of it was destroyed in the Second World War to prevent its use as a beachhead.

Commuters gravitate towards Shoreham Beach, North Shoreham and the town centre where two-bedroom ground floor flat starts at around £160,000. A two-bedroom bungalow with a sun room would fetch £190,000 to £225,000. For a three-bedroom semi in Shoreham Town or Beach, you would have to pay around £260,000. There are two secondary schools and the boys’ public school at Lancing is nearby.

Work has started on a regeneration programme for Shoreham Harbour over the next 15 to 20 years to provide 10,000 new homes, 7,000 jobs, and retail and leisure facilities. The beach will be improved, the railway station upgraded, and an extension of the proposed Rapid Transit System will link Shoreham with Brighton, Hove and the Sussex coast.