Moves to cut down the number of heavy lorries in residential areas will have to wait until the summer.

Councillors from Worthing borough and Adur district decided to delay arranging a meeting with West Sussex County Council to discuss building an East Worthing Access Road (Ewar).

Worthing residents along Sompting Road and Dominion Road suffer a lot of heavy traffic passing by their homes as lorries travel to and from industrial estates.

The Ewar plan, which has been supported by the borough since the Eighties, involves building a road from the A27, along the district boundary between Worthing and Adur to the industrial estates in East Worthing.

Efforts to build the road have suffered continual delays throughout the Nineties, partly because the issue is entwined with the replacement of Sompting waste treatment facilities in Halewick Lane.

If the waste treatment works was relocated to East Worthing, it would create a greater need for Ewar with more lorries coming to the area.

The county council will pick a contractor to replace the works in the next few months and it is hoped the successful firm will have a solid idea of where the works will be located.

The Government's imminent decision on multi-million pound plans to cut congestion on the South Coast could also have an impact on Ewar.

Adur and Worthing councils are expected to arrange talks with the county council about Ewar when they next meet in June.

Adur leader Neil Parkin said: "My colleagues and I have discussed this at length and we all feel it would be premature to talk to the county council without knowing the outcome of the multi-modal study and the outcome of the West Sussex Waste Plan.

"There is nothing wrong with holding a meeting but I do not think we would get anywhere."