Worthing, a seaside town in the English county of West Sussex which has had borough status since 1890, [1] has a wide range of public services funded by national government, West Sussex County Council, Worthing Borough Council and other public-sector bodies. Revenue to fund these services comes principally from Council Tax.
Home Office policing in Worthing is provided by the Worthing district of the West Downs division of Sussex Police. [2] The district is divided into three neighbourhood policing teams—Town, East and West—for operational purposes. The police station is now in Chatsworth Road, [3] but several town-centre sites have been occupied in the past. The first station was at 7 Ann Street; it moved to number 17 and then, in 1922, to 16 High Street. A new building was provided in Union Place in 1939. [4] After the move to Chatsworth Road, C.G. Stillman's brick structure fell into disuse, and in April 2009 permission was given to demolish it; this happened in October 2009. [5] [6]
When the town was incorporated, a combination of beadles, coastguard officers and headboroughs kept order. By the 1840s, a five-strong police force led by a Superintendent was in place; this became part of the newly formed West Sussex Police Force in 1857. The first police station, at 7 Ann Street, opened the following year. [4] [7] There is also a 19-cell custody suite at Centenary House in Durrington, which is the headquarters of the West Downs division. [8] [9] As of the third quarter of 2009, Worthing's three-month moving average crime rate was 7.3 crimes per 1000 people; this was similar to the rest of Sussex but higher than the equivalent quarter in 2008. [10]
A magistrates' court was established at the old town hall in 1835. Twelve years later, county court status was granted. When the new town hall was built in the 1930s, the arrangement continued, but a new courtroom was provided at the police station in 1940. The present Law Courts building on Christchurch Road dates from 1967 and was designed by a team including Frank Morris. [11]
Worthing's first fire engine was bought for the town by a resident in 1815. A 29-man volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1855; by 1869 it operated three fire stations. The borough organised its own fire brigade in 1891. A new fire station was built on High Street in 1908; it closed in 1961, and the present building on Ardsheal Road in Broadwater was provided in 1962. [7] [12] Services are now provided by the Worthing and Adur District Team, part of the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, [13] which employs 60 full-time and 18 retained firefighters at the Worthing station. [14]
The town's first hospital was built in 1829 on Ann Street. A larger building opened in 1846 on Chapel Road, and was given the name "Worthing Infirmary and Dispensary" after an enlargement in 1860. In 1881, the first part of what would become Worthing Hospital was opened: an 18-bed facility was built on a former plant nursery on Lyndhurst Road, northeast of the town centre. [15] Its range of facilities was extended in 1889, 1900, 1912 and 1923, and there were 78 beds by 1937. In 1975, a 375-bed block was added, and the oldest buildings were replaced in 1997 by a new ward of 120 beds. [7] [15] The latter extension was undertaken by the Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust, [15] but since 1 April 2009 Worthing Hospital has been administered by the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust. [16] Meadowfield Hospital, [17] formerly Swandean Hospital, is a mental health unit based in an 1865 house in High Salvington. It was opened as an isolation hospital in 1897 and later became a geriatric unit. [7] [15] There is another mental health unit at Greenacres, near Worthing Hospital. [15] [18] Goring Hall Hospital is a private hospital operated by BMI Healthcare, with 12 day-care beds and a 38-bed ward. Princess Margaret opened the facility in 1994. [19] The former Courtlands Hospital, opened in 1951 [20] as postoperative care unit operated by Worthing Hospital, was housed in a Grade II listed building in West Worthing [21] until its closure in 1973. [7] [22] It was still used for healthcare functions by West Sussex County Council until 1996. [15]
Until 1798, post bound for Worthing was conveyed by coach to Steyning and left there for collection. From then, deliveries operated via Shoreham-by-Sea, but in 1807 Worthing's first post office opened and it became a post town. [23] The main post office—a Head Post Office between 1919 and 1985— [24] has occupied eight different sites, [25] but it moved to Chapel Road in 1878 and was rebuilt in Neo-Georgian style in 1930. [7] [26] Public telegraph services began in 1880, although the railway had a system in place from 1859. Worthing's telephone system began in 1890; a manual telephone exchange, once the largest in England, was established in 1912 and was supplemented by a second in Goring-by-Sea in 1929. Automatic exchanges opened in 1966 and 1972. [24]
The town was provided with a gasworks in 1834. Situated on Lyndhurst Road, it produced gas for the whole town, Sompting and Findon by the end of the 19th century. Gas manufacture ceased in 1931, but the site was then used for storage: a gasholder was built in 1934 and used continuously until 2009, and was demolished in 2018. [7] [27] [28] Scotia Gas Networks now supply the town through their Southern Gas Networks division. [29] Electricity was first generated in Worthing in 1901, when the borough spent £32,500 (£3,754,000 as of 2022) [30] on three steam-powered generators. Surrounding suburbs, beginning with Durrington, were connected in the 1920s, and Worthing was served by the National Grid from 1930. [7] [31] The main electricity works on the High Street closed in 1958, [31] but power was generated locally until 1961. [7] The town had more than 500 gas lamps at the end of the 19th century, [27] but in 1901, 110 ornate cast iron arc-light street lamps were installed; [31] only one survives. It was saved from demolition in 1975 and is Grade II-listed. [32] [33] As of 2013 [update] , the electricity distribution network operator covering Worthing is UK Power Networks. [34]
Worthing relied on springs and wells for water until the Local Board (predecessors of the present Borough Council) [35] authorised a water supply system in 1852. A waterworks was built in 1857 on Little High Street. Robert Rawlinson's Lombardo-Gothic structure cost £30,000 (£3,045,000 as of 2022), [30] with a 110-foot (34 m) tower and a 110,000-imperial-gallon (500,000 L) storage tank, opened in 1857. [36] [37] It went out of use by 1897 [36] and was demolished in 1924. [38] A larger waterworks opened in 1897, and three more supplied the borough by 1927. Southern Water took over the supply in 1974. The company moved its headquarters to Durrington in 1989. [36] Worthing's drinking water is pumped from the chalk aquifer of the South Downs and from the western River Rother, and is classed as being hard: its calcium content is just over 100 mg per litre. [39] [note 1]
Worthing's typhoid epidemic of 1893, which killed 188 people, was caused by pollution of the water supply after the digging of an extra well to alleviate pressure on the waterworks interfered with an old sewer. [40] This prompted improvements in the town's primitive sewage disposal system, which consisted of a main sewer with an outfall in the English Channel, some subsidiary drains and hundreds of cesspools. In 1894, a new pumping station and outfall were built; this was improved in 1912 and 1932. Durrington and Goring were served by a separate system from 1936. The main sewage works at West Worthing and East Worthing were rebuilt in the 1960s and 1976 respectively. Southern Water has been responsible for all sewage and drainage functions since 1974. [7]
Worthing's main cemeteries are on South Farm Road in Broadwater (opened in 1862) and the bottom of Findon Valley (opened in 1927 on a 42-acre (17 ha) site). The latter's gatehouse and chapel were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. [7] [41] Several churches have their own small graveyards, and one existed next to Worthing railway station until about 1908, when its graves were moved to Broadwater. [42] [43] Worthing Crematorium, north of Findon in the neighbouring district of Arun, [44] was opened in 1967–68 on the site of Muntham Court, a mid-18th century Jacobean-style country house which was demolished in 1961. [42] [45]
Worthing is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, 10 miles (16 km) west of Brighton, and 18 miles (29 km) east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of 12.5 square miles (32.4 km2), the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Hove built-up area, the 15th most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Since 2010, northern parts of the borough, including the Worthing Downland Estate, have formed part of the South Downs National Park. In 2019, the Art Deco Worthing Pier was named the best in Britain.
Goring-by-Sea, commonly referred to simply as Goring, is a neighbourhood of Worthing and former civil parish, now in Worthing district in West Sussex, England. It lies west of West Worthing, about 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Worthing town centre. Historically in Sussex, in the rape of Arundel, Goring has been part of the borough of Worthing since 1929.
Durrington is a neighbourhood of Worthing and former civil parish, now in the borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. Historically in Sussex, in the rape of Bramber, it is situated near the A27 road, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) northwest of the town centre. Since 1992 it has been home to the community-led Durrington Festival.
High Salvington is a neighbourhood of Worthing, in the borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It is centred 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northwest of the town centre and is north of the A27.
West Worthing is a neighbourhood of Worthing in West Sussex, England that was developed within Heene and later expanded beyond Heene's boundaries. Intended as an exclusive resort, the township of West Worthing was developed from around 1864 and merged with the formerly separate township of Worthing in 1890, when Worthing gained borough status.
Worthing Borough Council is a district council in the county of West Sussex, based in the borough of Worthing. The borough council was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 out of the existing Worthing Municipal Council, which also had borough status. It forms the lower tier of local government in Worthing, responsible for local services such as housing, planning, leisure and tourism. Since 2014 it has been a constituent council of the Greater Brighton City Region.
Worthing is a large seaside town in Sussex, England in the United Kingdom. The history of the area begins in Prehistoric times and the present importance of the town dates from the 19th century.
Worthing, a seaside town with borough status in the United Kingdom, is connected to the rest of the country by a network of major roads, a mainline railway, frequent bus and coach services and a nearby airport. Its 19th-century growth was encouraged by the development of turnpikes and stagecoach routes to London and nearby towns. By the middle of that century railway services improved journey times and conditions significantly. Suburbanisation in the 20th century was assisted by a network of bus routes.
Worthing, a town with borough status in the English county of West Sussex, has 212 buildings with listed status. The Borough of Worthing covers an area of 8,030 acres (3,250 ha) on the south coast of England, facing the English Channel. The town's development in the early 19th century coincided with nearby Brighton's rise as a famous, fashionable resort, and Worthing became a quiet seaside town with a large stock of Victorian buildings. Residential growth in the 20th century absorbed nearby villages, and older houses, churches and mansions became part of the borough. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947, an act of Parliament effective from 1948, introduced the concept of "listing" buildings of architectural and historical interest, and Worthing Borough Council nominated 90 buildings at that time. More have since been added, but others have been demolished. As of 2009, Worthing has three buildings of Grade I status, 11 listed at Grade II*, 196 of Grade II status and three at the equivalent Grade C.
The Teville Stream is a stream which flows through the town of Worthing in West Sussex. Once significantly wider than the current stream, it is now culverted for much of its length.
St George's Church is an Anglican church in the East Worthing area of the borough of Worthing, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Built in 1867–68 to serve new residential development in the southeast of the town, the Decorated Gothic-style structure was extended later in the 19th century, and expanded its reach further by founding three mission halls elsewhere in Worthing. English Heritage has listed it at Grade C for its architectural and historical importance.
Worthing, a seaside resort on the English Channel coast of West Sussex, southeast England, has a long maritime history predating its late 18th-century emergence as a fashionable holiday and residential town. Fishing was a major economic activity for centuries, and still retains a small presence on Worthing's shingle shoreline. Smuggling, usually by sea, also contributed to the growing town's economy. The formerly sandy beach has changed over time, partly because of sea defence work carried out to alleviate concerns over flooding, which has affected the town several times. Large seaweed deposits, driven up from the sea bed, have caused occasional problems, while undersea rock formations off the coast have national importance as a wildlife habitat. There have been many shipwrecks and groundings in the area, and lifeboats were stationed in the town for many years.
St Symphorian's Church is an Anglican church in the Durrington area of the borough of Worthing, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. The original 13th-century chapelry declined and fell into ruins in the 17th century, partly due to damage caused by the English Civil War. Anglican worship was re-established in a tin tabernacle in 1890 as the former village grew into a suburb of Worthing, and during World War I a permanent church was built. It was extended during World War II. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
A wide variety of sport in Worthing has been played, which has a long and interesting history.
Crawley, a postwar New Town and borough in the English county of West Sussex, has a wide range of public services funded by national government, West Sussex County Council, Crawley Borough Council and other public-sector bodies. Revenue to fund these services comes principally from Council Tax. Some of Crawley's utilities and infrastructure are provided by outside parties, such as utility companies and West Sussex County Council, rather than by the borough council. To help pay for improved infrastructure and service provision in proposed major residential developments such as Kilnwood Vale and the North East Sector, the borough council has stated that as part of the Crawley Local Plan it would require developers to pay a Community Infrastructure Levy.
The Worthing Downland Estate, Worthing Downs or Worthing Downland, is an area of land in the South Downs National Park in West Sussex, England, close to the town of Worthing. It was bought by the public, following threats to the beauty spot of Cissbury Ring and the surrounding farmland, which led to a public campaign purchases in the 1930s. It is currently owned and managed, on behalf of the public, by Worthing Borough Council.
East Worthing is a residential area of Worthing in the Worthing district, in the county of West Sussex, England, situated immediately to the east of Worthing town centre. It is bounded by the West Coastway railway line and Broadwater to the north, Brooklands Park to the east, Homefield Park and Worthing town centre to the west and the English Channel coast to the south.
The following is a timeline of the history of the borough of Worthing, West Sussex, England.
Brighton and Hove, a city and unitary authority in the English county of East Sussex, has a wide range of public services funded by national government, East Sussex County Council, Brighton and Hove City Council and other public-sector bodies. Revenue to fund these services comes partly from Council Tax, which is paid annually by residents: this tax provides the city council with nearly 20% of its income and also helps to fund the local police force, Sussex Police, and the county's fire service, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. Some of Brighton and Hove's utilities and infrastructure are provided by outside parties, such as utility companies, rather than by the city council.