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Following resident complaints about the apparently sporadic nature of the work on some of what are welcome improvements to foot and cycling paths in the Burgess Hill, the following message was received by the Town Council from Nathan Spilsted, Lead Officer for the Place & Connectivity Programme, MSDC:

“Firstly my apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced whilst improvements are being delivered via the £22.8m Burgess Hill Place and Connectivity Programme. The programme of works were scheduled to be spaced out but unfortunately start was delayed due to Covid and delivery has been further delayed due to the exceptionally wet winter weather. This has compressed delivery and whilst the usual practice would be to pause delivery, we are required to continue to deliver at pace in order to meet Programme funding requirements set by central government.

The risk is that we would lose funding it these requirements are not met. The team are working as hard as they can to reopen the recently closed section of Green Circle between Malthouse Lane and to the north of Burgess Hill burial ground but this will be closed for up to 8 weeks and there will be further closures further along the Green Circle over the coming weeks to deliver improvements.

Further on-site signs advising the public of closures and the work programme will be put in place. I can advise that the section of the Green Circle between Gatehouse Land and Malthouse Lane is scheduled to reopen by the end of February; the path through West Park Nature Reserve should reopen by the end of next week and the route through Holmesdale Woods by the end of this week. I hope you will understand the reasons for the number of closures and I am sure that when the paths do reopen, you will find the schemes a vast improvement to what previously existed.”

Programme details are available at: https://burgesshill.net/transport/sustainable-transport