Parking restrictions planned for Bellbrook Business Park, Uckfield

Parking is set to be restricted on part of the Bellbrook Business Park, Uckfield.

Double yellow lines will be introduced at the town centre end of the estate to deter parking.

Managers and owners of businesses have raised concerns about the dangers of parking with the town’s Chamber of Commerce.

A spokesman for East Sussex County Council told Uckfield News.com the authority was aware of the problem and had “prioritised” the area for double yellow lines.

Various formal procedures have to be gone through before the lines can be painted on the road and the spokesman said there was “no date” for their introduction.

On some days before the school holidays cars were being parked on both sides of the road from the entrance near Halfords to the Isenhurst health club.

It is thought many of the vehicles belong to people commuting to London from Uckfield railway station. Two years ago the county council looked into the problem and offered to paint white lines to protect the access to business units, although there have been no requests for lines so far.

Business confidence looks 'fragile'

The recession is over but business confidence looks “a bit fragile”. That’s the view of commercial property agent Chris Lawson in his half-yearly report.

At the same time East Sussex County Council has wound up its “recession fund” but warned that businesses and local communities face “new challenges”.

National figures indicate the country is out of recession but levels of growth are tiny.

Mr Lawson said: “Six months into 2010 and business confidence in our area still looks a bit fragile. Demand for commercial property overall in the first half of the year is markedly better than in 2009, evidence of a small recovery.

“However, since the election and the emergency budget we have not seen a significant upsurge in demand which is a bit surprising when you consider just how many excellent opportunities there are. There is plenty of evidence in the market place that rents and capital values have eased from their peak in 2007 and thus renting premises is far more affordable today than it would have been two or three years ago.

“The other notable feature of the current market is that there is not a huge supply of property available. It is fairly modest and, in certain size categories if you are an industrialist, you will struggle to find a unit available anywhere.

“The retail market seems to be holding up quite well and there are not dozens of empty shops in our Wealden towns.”

Another indicator of the health of the local economy is the East Sussex Business Survey. It shows there has been some small improvement in the state of the county’s businesses, with 44 per cent considering their state to be good or excellent over the next 12 months, as against 40 per cent in 2009.

Significantly, however, more micro-sized businesses – which tend to predominate in Uckfield and Wealden generally - consider their business state to be poor over the next 12 months.

A report to East Sussex County Council points out that the squeeze on public spending will affect the area with nearly a third of jobs dependent on the public service sector.

Councillors were told the recession fund had been a significant source of “pump priming” to support a range of activities.

The report said: “The threats to our communities and businesses are now changing significantly in nature, not least as a result of the significant reductions in public expenditure that are due to take place over the next few years.

“The recession, as expected, has proved to be challenging for businesses, residents and the voluntary and community sector right across the county. As the challenges change, the county council will continue to work in partnership with key partners to ensure that the effects of the recession on the areas of focus can be mitigated and that appropriate responses are supported by a strong evidence base.”

Uckfield firm wins major contract

An Uckfield company will work on one of the country’s largest engineering projects – Crossrail in London.

The contract is considered to be the largest single contract for geotechnical instrumentation and monitoring ever undertaken in the UK.

It involves extensive monitoring of existing buildings, above and below ground structures and at street level for ground movement along the length of Crossrail’s central section.

Uckfield-based ITM will provide, maintain and manage a central database that receives information from all site instruments installed for London Underground Ltd (LUL), Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and Network Rail (NR) through central London.

In the last 12 months ITM has won significant instrumentation and monitoring contracts including the Green Park station upgrade for Tubelines; Victoria station upgrade for LUL and Blackfriars station and bridge construction works for Balfour Beatty.

ITM Managing Director Jonathan Scott said: “We are really looking forward to being involved in one of the most exciting and challenging civil engineering projects that is happening anywhere in the world.”

From 2017, it is planned that Crossrail trains will travel from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east via new twin tunnels under central London. Crossrail will link Heathrow Airport, the West End, the City of London and Canary Wharf.

ITM is part of the ITM-Soil Group which specialises in the manufacture and installation of high quality geotechnical and structural instrumentation to monitor movement in foundations and construction for civil engineering works, mining projects and the railway infrastructure throughout the United Kingdom and worldwide.

Read about the redevelopment of the company’s headquarters on the Bellbrook Business Park, Uckfield (published June 8, 2010).

Pictured: ITM Managing Director Jeremy Scott (left) with director Chris Rasmussen.

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News in Brief

* Millworks Ltd has moved from the Bellbrook Business Park, Uckfield, to new premises at Upper Hartfield.

* Let's do Business returns to the Hastings Centre on Thursday, September 30, when hundreds of business owners from across the region will meet face-to-face. Doors are open for visitors from 10am to 5pm with free admission.