Working party to look into marina project

The group consists of representatives from Arun and West Sussex councils, the South East England Development Agency, the Environment Agency and the Crown Estate.

The idea of the working party came from Arun to try to progress the multi-million pound project which could transform the town. Richard McMann, the council's Bognor regeneration head, said: 'We are going to work together.

'We can't expect people to get involved with the project if we don't know what we want. We have got to evaulate what a marina would be worth to the town.'

Some preliminary work, such as seabed surveys, had been carried out by construction company Robert McAlpine when it was carrying out investigations into the project.

But Mr McMann said it was too little to enable another operator to be able to form an opinion whether to proceed with the scheme.