What is Wayfinding?

Wayfinding is the use of signage, colour, and other design elements to help us navigate through and around space. To make signage more personal to a place, good wayfinding combines these signage elements with community based design, culture and heritage to develop a consistent visual narrative which helps give places a unique and recognisable identity. Highlighting the key sites and trails and showcasing the history and stories that make places special, wayfinding contributes to our wellbeing – making places easier to navigate for everyone, encourages active travel, celebrates our culture, and, through public art and design which includes the local community, increases our feelings of welcome, ownership and pride in place.

Why Wayfinding in Bognor Regis?

Bognor Regis is a town with a lot to offer: a busy pedestrianised retail centre with plenty of public parking and good public transport links which deliver people directly into the centre of town.  It is a relatively level, compact town centre, making it fairly easy to get around whether you’re on foot or using wheeled devices. But it has its challenges too – local feedback tells us that the town centre needs to feel more welcoming and secure, with less litter and much better signage to both help people get around and promote Bognor Regis’s main attractions as an enjoyable seaside town.

To tackle these issues, the Bognor Regis Regeneration Board consulted with stakeholders – the local Councils, the University, the Business Improvement District and businesses – to put together a strategy for wayfinding in the town, identifying the key routes between major attractions. This led to a partnership bid to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund which meant we were able to run a year-long community design process and commission the installation of the main route from Bognor Regis Railway Station to Butlin’s, taking in the town centre and the central section of The Promenade. This process was fully funded by the UKSPF grant award, meaning no monies have been drawn from local council budgets.

Where did the designs come from?

They came from you! We held a series of public workshops, including town centre drop-ins, pop-up events at local music and sports venues, and focused sessions with AgeUK, Voluntary Action Arun & Chichester, and local Councillors. Our goal was to involve as many people as possible in designing a scheme for Bognor Regis by Bognor Regis.  Using a bright colour palette, which was developed reflect Bognor Regis’s bold personality and its heritage as a seaside destination, we provided materials to help those attending to put together ideas which they felt reflected their view of the town.

We were delighted to meet and speak to hundreds of local residents and visitors and blown away by your hugely positive reactions to the proposed scheme. Over 200 individual designs were created and submitted by people aged between 4 – 87 years! Some designs stood out on their own; others were similar in approach and style, and so our consultant was able to combine these into clear themes. We hope you have fun trying to identify where your ideas have been used!

Where can I see wayfinding in the town?

The first route will be installed over December 2024. To make best use of funds and reduce the need for new manufacture and disruption in the town centre, the majority of the installations will repurpose or enhance existing street furniture. Materials have been chosen to ensure they are easier to maintain and more resistant to vandalism or the weather, thus reducing the need for increased spending in the longer term.

The route runs from Bognor Regis Station to Butlin’s through London Road to the Promenade, or along the eastern end of High Street and Clarence Road, with extensions west along The Promenade to the pier and along Queensway, Canada Grove and Steyne Street/Sunken Gardens.

What did it cost?

The Wayfinding Strategy was funded by members of the Bognor Regis Regeneration Board.

The Design Phase and Route 1 installation has been funded by the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund, with an award of £187,000 (£44,000 revenue/£143,000 capital). No additional funding has been sought from any local Council, and the route will be delivered in full.

What next?

Route 1 should only be the start. The Wayfinding Strategy identified several key trails, including the areas of Waterloo Square/Old Town and between the University of Chichester and the town centre.

The Bognor Regis Regeneration Board, which led on the strategy and on delivery of the design phase and implementation of Route 1, has now closed. But the Strategy has been adopted by the Bognor Regis Town Council and the BID and has been included in Arun District Council’s tourism strategy. This means that there are other agencies in the town who have the opportunity to take this forward, securing funding to ensure that the other routes are installed and that the identity of the town, informed by the designs created by Bognor Regis residents, continues to flourish.

And finally…

THANK YOU for getting involved in the wayfinding process. We hope you enjoy seeing the designs you helped to create and feel proud of being part of making your town a brighter, welcoming and more enjoyable place to be.

THANK YOU also to the partners that made this happen;

Content & Images: Bognor Regis Museum, Sussex Kelp Recovery Project, The Bognor Regis Heritage Partnership.

Funding for Design Phase & Route 1: UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UK Government).

Funding for Strategy: West Sussex County Council, Butlin’s, Bognor Regis Town Council, Bognor Regis Regeneration Board & Bognor Regis Business Improvement District.

Project Support: Richard Wolfstrome (https://wolfstrome.place/), Age UK, Voluntary Action Arun & Chichester, AgeUK, The_Track and Jay Beacher.