THE Argus has published quite a few letters from me over the past few years on the subject of the proposed Ikea store in Lancing, each of which has

expressed my doubts that it would ever get built.

In 2018 I pointed out that Ikea was already turning some of its megastores into distribution centres for home delivery and, as consumer demand for some

of its out-of-town ones had waned, had started investing in smaller stores and city-centre shops, together with new services such as furniture assembly.

In June 2019, one of them ended with the question: "So, what happens if millions of pounds of taxpayers' money are spent replacing the Sussex Pad

traffic lights with a roundabout, and people using the A27 are inconvenienced for months on end while it is being built, and then Ikea decides that it no longer needs a retail store in Lancing?

In February of last year I commented, under the heading "Will it happen?" , that "the chances that the public will be flocking to this part of Sussex

to buy their ready-to-assemble furniture looks less and less likely as the months tick by".

How come then that apparently no one on West Sussex County Council or Adur District Council or Lancing Parish Council has ever expressed the slightest

doubt that this store would end up being built on the newly named Mash Barn Park estate? Or were they all just keeping quiet and hoping for the best,

even though it was apparent that Ikea's trading pattern was changing, that it was being built on a flood plain and that the construction of mammoth new

roundabouts would cause chaos on the A27 for months on end?

Eric Waters

Lancing