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West Sussex
Geography
Status:	Ceremonial & Non-metropolitan county
Region:	South East England
Area: - Total - Admin. council	Ranked 30th 1,991 km² (769 sq mi) Ranked 27th
Admin HQ:	Chichester
ISO 3166-2:	GB-WSX
ONS code:	45
NUTS 3:	UKJ24
Demographics
Population: - Total (2006 est.) - Density - Admin. Council	Ranked 27th 770,900 387/km² (1,002/sq mi) Ranked 9th
Ethnicity:	96.6% White 1.7% S.Asian
Politics
West Sussex County Council http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/
Executive:	Conservative
Members of Parliament
Peter Bottomley (C) Nick Gibb (C) Nick Herbert (C) Tim Loughton (C) Francis Maude (C) Laura Moffatt (L) Nicholas Soames (C) Andrew Tyrie (C)
Districts
Worthing Arun Chichester Horsham Crawley Mid Sussex Adur

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex (with Brighton and Hove), Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming into force of the Local Government Act 1972. Also at this time the Mid Sussex region (including Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and East Grinstead) was transferred from East Sussex.

West Sussex is a diverse county; it is well known for its gastronomy, stately homes and castles such as Arundel Castle and Bramber Castle. Over half the county is protected countryside, offering popular walking and cycling ground for visitors and residents alike [1].

Chichester is the county town of West Sussex, and the highest point of the county is Black Down, at 280m/919 ft (grid reference SU919296).

Contents 1 Settlements 2 Communications and transport 3 Local government 4 Places of interest 4.1 Castles, houses and other buildings 4.2 Museums 4.3 Nature 4.4 Ancient history 4.5 Religious buildings 4.6 The arts 4.7 Other 5 History 6 Economy 7 Education 7.1 GCSE results by district council (%) 8 Politics 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Most settlements in West Sussex are either along the south coast or are situated in the M23 corridor. Crawley and Worthing are the largest settlements in the county, with populations of approximately 100 000 inhabitants each. Next in size order comes the market town of Horsham, and Bognor Regis, on the south coast. Chichester, the county town, boasts a cathedral and city status, and is situated not far from the border with Hampshire. Other towns in alphabetical order are Burgess Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath in the Mid Sussex district, and Littlehampton in the Arun district.

Other settlements include the towns of Arundel, Lancing and Shoreham-by-Sea, and the smaller settlements of Billingshurst, Cuckfield, Henfield, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint, Midhurst, Petworth, Rustington, Steyning, Storrington and Pulborough.

For a full list of settlements see List of places in West Sussex.

The M23/A23 runs through the east of the county from Coulsdon in Surrey all the way to Brighton & Hove. Other major roads are the A272 which runs east to west, and the A27 which does the same but closer to the coast; the A272 going through the middle of the county. Along the majority of the coast can be found the A259, which is often used as an alternate route to the A27.

Gatwick Airport, which handled over 32 million passengers in 2005, is located to the north of Crawley, and is the second largest airport in the United Kingdom. There is also a considerably smaller local airport at Shoreham. There are 3 main railway routes; the Brighton Main Line, the Arun Valley Line and the West Coastway Line.

West Sussex County Council, based at County Hall Chichester, provides a large range of services including education, social services, fire and rescue, libraries, town and country planning, refuse disposal and consumer services. In addition there are seven local government districts within the county of West Sussex:

• Adur
• Arun
• Chichester
• Crawley
• Horsham
• Mid Sussex
• Worthing

• Arundel Castle
• Barnham Windmill
• Christ's Hospital, an old public school notable for its archaic uniforms and picturesque campus.
• Goodwood House & Goodwood airfield
• High Salvington windmill
• Hurstpierpoint College - a Public School, notable for its substantial Sussex flint buildings, large campus and high academic and sporting standards.
• Lancing College - a Public School, notable for its substantial Sussex sandstone chapel, large campus and high academic standards.
• Petworth House
• Queen Victoria Hospital [East Grinstead] - Home of the McIndoe burns centre. Pioneered reconsturctive surgery for burns patients during the Second World War.
• Shipley Windmill
• Standen, East Grinstead
• Uppark

• Amberley Working Museum
• Weald and Downland Open Air Museum of Historic Buildings at Singleton
• Tangmere Military Aviation Museum [2]

• WWT Arundel (a nature reserve of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust)
• Selsey Bill
• South Downs Way - a long distance footpath
• Stansted Park
• Wakehurst Place

• Bignor Roman Villa
• Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury Ring, ancient hill forts located on the South Downs
• Fishbourne Roman Palace

• Bosham Church
• St. Margaret's Church, West Hoathly - an 11th century Anglo-Saxon church
• St Mary's Church, Sompting - an 11th century Anglo-Saxon church.
• St Swithuns Church East Grinstead
• St. Nicholas' Church, Worth - a 10th century church in Worth, Crawley
• St. Marks Church, Horsham - a Anglican church in Horsham

See also Category:Churches in West Sussex

• Pallant House Gallery in Chichester houses one of the most significant collections of 20th century British art outside London. It includes a substantial body of early and mid-20th century work bequeathed by Walter Hussey (Dean of Chichester Cathedral, 1955-1977) and many later works donated by Sir Colin St John 'Sandy' Wilson.
• Worthing Museum and Art Gallery houses the biggest collection of Georgian & Victorian costume in South East England.

• Gatwick Airport
• Shoreham Airport - the world's oldest continually-operational airport.
• Hickstead Showjumping

Main article: History of Sussex

.

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of West Sussex at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added[1]	Agriculture[2]	Industry[3]	Services[4]
1995	8,564	208	2,239	6,116
2000	10,576	162	2,545	7,869
2003	12,619	185	2,520	9,915

1. ^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
2. ^ includes hunting and forestry
3. ^ includes energy and construction
4. ^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

The following are some of the companies based in West Sussex, Crawley:

• Virgin Atlantic Airways
• Unilever
• BOC Edwards
• TUI Travel PLC
• Thales UK.

West Sussex has a comprehensive education system, with 37 state schools and 20 independent schools. At GCSE, in England, on average, 45.8% of pupils gain 5 grades A-C including English and Maths; for West Sussex LEA and its 8500 pupils that take GCSE at 16, it is 47.7%. However the variation across the county is quite large, with Horsham and Mid Sussex districts producing much better results than the other districts. Mid Sussex district has the highest school population, with Adur the smallest (only having two schools). The provision of sixth-forms varies as well by district: although at least 80% of schools have sixth-forms, most schools in Worthing district do not, and only half of the schools in Mid Sussex and Horsham districts do as well. At A-level, West Sussex (similar to East Sussex, although East Sussex gets lower results) performs well under the England average. The independent schools perform the best at A level in West Sussex, but (as a comparison) only Lancing College would be better than a typical grammar school in a selective area: the area's A-level performance is disappointing. At A level, the best state school is Holy Trinity C of E Secondary School in Crawley, and the best independent is Lancing College.

% achieving 5 grades A-C at GCSE including English and Maths in 2006; compare this table to average house price by council district.

• Horsham 59.6
• Mid Sussex 59.3
• Chichester 52.3
• Worthing 46.0
• Crawley 42.2
• Arun 39.3
• Adur 23.5

West Sussex County Council has 70 councillors; the majority of them being Conservative. There are 47 Conservative councillors, 16 Liberal Democrats, and 7 Labour Party councillors. [3]

As of the 2005 general election, West Sussex is largely represented by Conservative MPs, with the exception of the Labour Party constituency of Crawley, where Labour held the seat by just 37 votes. The Members of Parliament, their corresponding constituencies and the percentage of the vote they received are as follows:

• Arundel & South Downs - Nick Herbert, Conservative, 49.8%
• Bognor Regis - Nick Gibb, Conservative, 44.6%
• Chichester - Andrew Tyrie, Conservative, 48.3%
• Crawley - Laura Moffatt, Labour, 39.1%
• Horsham - Francis Maude, Conservative, 50.0%
• Mid Sussex - Nicholas Soames, Conservative, 48.0%
• Worthing East - Tim Loughton, Conservative, 43.9%
• Worthing West - Peter Bottomley, Conservative, 47.6%

[4]

• East Sussex
• Sussex
• The Royal Sussex Regiment
• Eastbourne Redoubt Home of the Royal Sussex Regimental Museum

1. ^ Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
2. ^ includes hunting and forestry
3. ^ includes energy and construction
4. ^ includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

• The River Wey and Wey Navigations Community Site — a non-commercial site of over 200,000 words all about the River Wey including information and images about the source of the Wey at Black Down in West Sussex.
• Eastbourne Redoubt Fortress Military Museum Eastbourne Redoubt is the home of the Royal Sussex Regimental Museum
• The Royal Sussex Regimental Association [5]
• Rustington information website with useful telephone numbers and links

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Coordinates: 51.05840° N 0.69006° W