Legal action threat in Bognor's Tesco lights row

Bognor Regis Civic Society deputy chairman Hugh Coster said facts he had received under a Freedom of Information requests showed no effort had been made to act on the wishes of council members.

The documents revealed the officials just wanted to progress the traffic lights proposal. All their other efforts were spent frustrating the wishes of councillors.

He said: "Officers made no real effort at all to properly explore the benefits of a left-hand lane."

Instead, they produced the latest proposals which he described as a 'fudge'.

He read out several emails and letters to back up his allegations. This included legal advice that Tesco was not obliged to make any alterations to its junction with the A29. This explained why the county council wanted only to agree to the company's wishes.

"All Tesco wants is to get people in and out of its car park easily," he added.

Kieran Stigant, the county council's director of customers and communities, strongly rejected the allegation of officers seeking to frustrate the decisions of councillors.

He said many of the documents showed council officers legitimately testing various options for the store's access. He had done the same in other situations.

County highways officer Duncan Barratt said Mr Coster was reading selectively from the 300-400 pages of information he had been sent.

He defended the actions of officers as carrying out their duties to find out the best solution for the site's problems.