Former Worthing pub to be converted into flats

Proposals for the pub in Downview Road were approved last night by the planning committee, who said they were pleased the red brick, three-storey building, which was built in 1891, would be protected.

Councillor Jim Deen said: “It’s a fine building, a building that is well worth keeping in an area that has relatively few fine buildings.

“It needs a bit of smartening up but it has potential to be restored and tidied up into an excellent building.”

He said that, as a pub, it had always been viewed as ‘a place of last resort’.

Councillor Edward Crouch said it did not seem as though the pub would be much missed.

Councillor Nicola Waight feared the development would increase parking pressures in the area and said its location near a railway station did not guarantee that residents would not own their own cars.

The ground floor of the building will have space for commercial use and a new terrace of four two-bedroom houses would be built on the former car park.

At the same meeting, a planning application to replace the former Wheatsheaf pub in Worthing with a block of flats was rejected.