'Decaying' bingo hall will be demolished to make way for housing – The Argus

         <span class="mar-article__timestamp">                                  <time datetime="2025-11-10 14:00:00"                     data-format="article-display"                     data-show-date="always"                     data-show-time="today-only"                     data-timestamp="1762783200"                     itemprop="datePublished"                     class="author-details__timestamp formatTimeStampEs6"                     full-date="10.11.2025">&nbsp;                 </time>                              </span>             <!-- standard - ArticleTags.html --> <div class="article-tags" role="listitem"><a href="/topics/planning-and-development/">Planning and development</a></div>                              <!-- standard - ArticleTags.html --> <div class="article-tags" role="listitem"><a href="/local-news/worthing-news/">Worthing</a></div>         <br>   A “decaying” bingo hall will be demolished to make way for housing. <br>   Worthing Borough Council has approved Cayuga Development’s plans to build a five-storey mixed-use building with 47 flats on the former Buzz Bingo site in Worthing. <br>   The existing car park will also be redeveloped to accommodate a terrace of six three-storey houses with private gardens and car parking spaces. Two retail units are to be built on the ground level fronting onto Rowlands Road. <br>   <a href="https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/24471134.worthing-buzz-bingo-demolished-redeveloped/?ref=ed_direct" target="_blank">Cayuga’s director Matt Hoad previously said the building is in a “poor condition” and that retaining it would be “too difficult</a>”. <br>   The developer described the building, which had been used as a bingo hall since the 1970s up until earlier this year, as “shabby and unattractive”. <br>   <img srcset="https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178772/?type=mds-article-575 575w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178772/?type=mds-article-962 962w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178772/?type=mds-article-642 1400w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178772/?type=mds-article-620 1401w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 575px, (max-width: 992px) 962px, (max-width: 1400px) 1400px, (min-width: 1401px) 1401px" width="100%"><span class="inline-image-caption">Houses will be built on the car park <em>(Image: LRA Retinue)</em></span> <br>   Buzz Bingo closed for the final time on January 25. <br>   The building has been a significant presence in the town for around 100 years and was popular when it was a 2,000-seat cinema between 1933 and 1968. <br>   Developers said the front facade is showing signs of “deterioration” and its “physical retention and adaptation would potentially challenge the viability of delivering high quality, highly sustainable residential accommodation”. <br>   Planning documents said the scale of the replacement for the existing cinema building will be smaller both in height and in plan. <br>   “The volume and scale of the rebuild will therefore be reduced overall compared to the existing building, resulting in improvements in daylight and sunlight for neighbours,” documents said. <br>   “Carefully positioned window openings and external materials will also improve the appearance of the building at the rear compared to the stark blank brick walls of the existing. <br>   “The row of six houses at the rear will be very similar in height to neighbouring existing houses.” <br>   Documents added that the scheme would improve the look of the area and provide much needed housing to the town. <br>   <img srcset="https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178774/?type=mds-article-575 575w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178774/?type=mds-article-962 962w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178774/?type=mds-article-642 1400w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178774/?type=mds-article-620 1401w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 575px, (max-width: 992px) 962px, (max-width: 1400px) 1400px, (min-width: 1401px) 1401px" width="100%"><span class="inline-image-caption">The building from Rowlands Road <em>(Image: LRA Retinue)</em></span> <br>   “Fundamentally, the project seeks to enable the essential character of an existing building that has stood in the town for nearly a hundred years to be retained whilst making effective use of the site which is in a highly sustainable and desirable town centre location,” the scheme’s design and access statement said. <br>   “The former Plaza Cinema building is a distinctive and familiar character in the street scene for which many local people feel great fondness. <br>   <img srcset="https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178775/?type=mds-article-575 575w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178775/?type=mds-article-962 962w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178775/?type=mds-article-642 1400w, https://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/20178775/?type=mds-article-620 1401w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 575px, (max-width: 992px) 962px, (max-width: 1400px) 1400px, (min-width: 1401px) 1401px" width="100%"><span class="inline-image-caption">The scheme from behind <em>(Image: LRA Retinue)</em></span> <br>   “The proposals enable to retention of the essential character of the main front of this building with a few additional windows and features to enable effective conversion to residential. Less than 20 per cent of the volume of the existing building has been in use for the past 50 years. The rest remaining a dark empty void, with stark blank brick walls to the rear, gradually decaying and falling into disrepair, offering little to the quality of outlook from nearby adjacent properties. <br>   “Replacing the existing with a new mixed use building including high quality residential apartments therefore has the potential to make a significant contribution towards meeting housing need locally, in a highly sustainable and desirable location, close to the sea front, all amenities and public transport.” <br>This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's     Editors' Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to     inaccuracy or intrusion, then please <a class="footer__ipso-terms--link" href="/contact">     contact the editor here</a>.     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