There are fears that the Chichester Gate Leisure Park has become a ghost town and it could be dying out if nothing is done to make it more exciting.
They have large empty buildings and people have been saying that it is starting to look tacky local residents have asked whether the Chichester Gate Leisure Park is becoming a ghost town.
Traffic cones surround the empty Tandoori Nite Restaurant. Meanwhile the Fortune Inn Chinese Restaurant remains closed as it is being painted and the furniture is being placed in the restaurant to start the new building in the Chichester Gate Leisure Park. The doors closed some time ago on the former Chicago Rock and Live Lounge buildings.
The Cineworld cinema, Lakeside Superbowl bowling alley, Frankie and Benny’s, Wetherspoons and Nando’s are still open and pulling in some customers at the weekends and some evenings. The Nuffield Health and Wellbeing centre also draws in visitors.
The residents question whether this is enough to keep it going in the future even though those places have some customers it might not be enough to keep it all open as even though they are open they still are not getting a lot of customers to come and visit. Pete Lambrou a music promoter who organises gigs in the city said Chichester Gate Leisure Park is now a ‘Ghost town. It is a bit out of town I think, so you don’t get many lunchtime office meetings there.”
Alan Green, who lives next to the site at Stockbridge Road, said “It would be a nice wish if Chichester Gate was closed. The whole place is so tacky. It is hardly worthy as a Southern Gateway to the City. It was excessively busy when it first opened though not anymore.”
Vice president and acting president of the University of Chichester’s Students’ Union Cee Cee Douglas said “Students hardly visit Chichester Gate any more. Students used to go to the Live Lounge before it closed. From our point of view, students mainly only use Chichester Gate for Nando’s or the Cinema. We have nights here at the student union bar for them to go all the way to Chichester Gate is a bit of a mission.”
Treasurer of the Chichester Society David Wilson said: “At the time when it first opened the then members of the society had doubts whether the developers were over-reaching themselves. Now that it is here, I am reluctant to see it become derelict and I hope the owners can generate some business without going to the lowest common denominator – something that attracts people to go there just to drink. I wouldn’t want it to become simply just a huge space with a number of places to drink at and nothing else. The complex was always intended to be for evening and weekend entertainment. The owners would have to have a complete re-think of the function of it to draw more people down during the day. Why do people go out during the day - to go shopping.”
Chichester Gate Leisure Park is a ghost town but should it be closed or does it just need improving I think some of the reasons for it not doing so well is that it needs improving with the help of locals and others they could improve the facilities available and make it more profitable.
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