I thought I’d explore the UK’s south coast on foot this year, as I really enjoyed the BBC series “Coast”, I like being near the seaside, and the south coast is in easy reach with train services providing easy and convenient access.
But this walk from Brighton heading east, quite frankly sucks. Heading out of town and towards the marina, your feet and soul begin to ache at the sight of a generic out of town shopping/entertainment mall where the pedestrian access along the rising chalk cliffs should be the main attraction, but instead is marginalised and funnelled through a maze of concrete. The footpath winds through the left over spaces that emerged when the quickest (and laziest, in terms of imagination and planning) vehicular access route from Brighton into the marina was designed. Or shall I say, engineered. The road comes high from the cliff tops, and its propped up lanes cut through the landscape with no regard to topography, landscape or urban design. Effectively it is a high-level box-section bridge that rests on cylindrical posts and slopes wearily down to the shopping/cinema complex, dissecting cliffs, beach and sea.
The trail crosses extensive car parks and a bland, repetitive cluster of predictable apartment blocks before the ending a shabby industrial section of the marina, where pedestrians are forced to double back on themselves because fences and a boat park obstruct clear access. From there on, you have no choice but walk for miles along a concrete enforced coastal path, that is more reminiscent of dismal military enforcements than the liberating junction of sea and land.
I shall certainly not return to this stretch of coast.
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