The fate of a derelict shopping centre could be decided by late summer.

Councillor Chris Sargent said he was expecting a planning application for the redevelopment of Teville Gate to be submitted in about six months.

Coun Sargent, chairman of economic development on Worthing Borough Council, said the site owners, Farrho, had already sent in an outline application to test the water.

But planners were unimpressed by the scheme and urged the developers to go back to the drawing board.

Following the collapse of plans for a multi-screen cinema, it seems likely most of the site will become housing, with a small, unspecified leisure use.

Flemings burger kiosk, forming the southern gateway to Teville Gate, has been boarded up, leaving just Comet electrical store, Teville Pharmacy and an audio hi-fi shop trading in the precinct, a haunt for muggers, arsonists, drug addicts and vandals.

Coun Sargent said: "My understanding is the owners have come to some arrangement with the tenants and they will disappear one by one.

"We are expecting a planning application in about six months but it doesn't necessarily mean that development will follow immediately."

He said the outline application was not acceptable because the block of flats proposed was "too slab-like".

He added: "They had surrounded the entire corner of Teville Road and Broadwater Road with a great edifice like a block of concrete with almost no windows.

"It wasn't an attractive design. They wanted to cram in as much as they could. It was something like five or six storeys high.

"Whatever does go there ought to be something really outstanding because it is such a prominent corner."