ACES lobby for an upgraded A27

Christina Ewbank of ACES and Eastbourne Councillor Caroline Ansell get some important messages across to Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport about the weakness of the East Sussex road infrastructure; particularly the A27 and the A21.  To boost the local economy we also lobbied for a second runway at Gatwick Airport with improved road links to it.

The A27 between Polegate and Lewes has already been included on the 2014 Strategic Roads Review so we focused on the A27.  The main area of interest for the Minister was how any road upgrade would boost the economy of East Sussex and provide more jobs.

We had plenty of ammunition having surveyed the business community and residents of Eastbourne but we need to know what you think in the rest of East Sussex.  In Eastbourne:

• A massive 53% of businesses said they would employ more staff if the A27 were
  upgraded
• 43% of businesses said they had lost customers due to the condition of the A27 while 
• 14% of businesses have lost contracts
• 20% of businesses had considered relocating because of the A27
• 97% of businesses said more tourists would help the economy grow

And

• 60% of residents said the current A27 has a significant impact on the prosperity of  
  Eastbourne
• 91% of residents described the A27 as an unsafe road while 68% had actually experienced an accident or near miss 

One respondent alone said:
“We estimate losing provisionally booked conference business of £700,000 annually purely because of poor road links and the experience of these by potential [conference] bookers”

If we can bring major conferences back to Eastbourne throughout the year, imagine the boost to East Sussex hotels, restaurants, pubs and shops.

We are designing a survey to canvass opinion about the A27 across East Sussex and will post it here very soon.