Mid Sussex roadworks: 87 schemes, 17 still to start

West Sussex County Council’s highways programme for 2026 to 2027 contains 87 schemes inside the Mid Sussex district, and 17 of them have not started yet. That list is the most reliable guide there is to where the cones will be over the next few months, because it is the council’s own delivery plan rather than a snapshot of this week’s traffic lights.

This page covers what is in that programme, where the pressure points on the road network are, and what parking costs in each of the three towns, including a tariff trap that can double the price of an afternoon in the shops.

The 2026-27 programme, by type

From the county council’s Highways, Transport and Planning Delivery Programme 2026-2027, counting only schemes whose parish sits in Mid Sussex:

By parish, East Grinstead has the most work with 15 schemes, then Burgess Hill with 12, Worth with 8, Hassocks with 7 and Haywards Heath with 6.

The pattern worth noticing is drainage. Eight separate drainage schemes for one district is a lot, and West Sussex has said its highways budget for the year includes money to repair flood damage. If your road floods, the county’s own list is the place to check whether anything is planned for it.

The 17 schemes still to start

These are listed as pre-construction in the programme, meaning they are designed or awaiting build and have not yet appeared on the ground. This is the useful part of the document, because everything else on it is either finished or already under way.

Burgess Hill

• Keymer Road, from Clay Hill to Broadlands: major drainage scheme.
• Valebridge Road, from Rose Walk to the outfall: major drainage scheme.
• Civic Way: pedestrian crossing near The Martlets, signals upgrade.
• London Road at Maple Drive: signals upgrade.

East Grinstead

• Hazelden Bridge, Imberhorne Lane: structures refurbishment.
• Beeching Way, between Lewes Road and the College Lane flyover: drainage.
• Escots Primary School, Bourg de Peage Avenue: footway and pedestrian improvements.

Haywards Heath and around

• Orchard Close: major drainage scheme.
• Borde Hill Lane (C309): local safety scheme.
• Walstead Culvert, Scaynes Hill Road: structures scheme.

Villages

• Cuckfield Road, Hurstpierpoint: village-wide speed limit improvement.
• Keymer Road, Keymer: speed limit improvement.
• The Street, Albourne, at the Church Lane junction: major drainage.
• Clayton Hill, Pyecombe, at the bridleway crossing by the golf club: footway improvements.
• Turners Hill Road (C319): road safety improvement.
• Brighton Road, Slaugham: bus stop travel information.
• Wallage Lane, Worth: minor drainage.

Two of these are worth planning around if they affect your route. A village-wide speed limit scheme at Hurstpierpoint and a major drainage scheme on The Street at Albourne both tend to mean sustained traffic management rather than a couple of nights’ work.

The roads that matter here

Mid Sussex has one strategic road and several pinch points, and knowing which is which tells you where a closure actually hurts.

• The A23 runs north to south through the western half of the district, past Bolney, Warninglid and Handcross, linking the M23 at Pease Pottage to Brighton. It is a National Highways road, not a county one, so county roadworks listings will not show works on it. National Highways carried out bridge deck refurbishment at M23 Junction 11, Pease Pottage, in June 2026, with overnight and weekend closures of the western quadrant of the roundabout.
• The A272 crosses the district east to west through Cuckfield and Haywards Heath. When the A23 is shut, this is the road that fills up.
• The A22 and A264 serve East Grinstead, which is the town furthest from the A23 and the one whose traffic has nowhere obvious to divert to.
• The B2036 and B2112 carry the Haywards Heath, Lindfield and Ardingly traffic and are single carriageway throughout.

What parking costs

Mid Sussex District Council runs the pay and display car parks in Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and East Grinstead. Charges apply 8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 5pm on Sundays and bank holidays. These are the current tariffs from the council’s parking page, last updated 15 May 2026.

Haywards Heath £5.50 long stay £8.10 short stay £1.10 Sunday

East Grinstead £5.70 long stay £8.50 short stay £1.00 Sunday Bars start at zero. Charges apply 8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 5pm on Sundays and bank holidays. Up to three hours the two tariffs are identical. The gap only opens once you pass the three-hour mark.

The tariff trap is the short stay bands. For up to three hours, a short stay and a long stay car park in the same town cost exactly the same. Past three hours they diverge sharply, and an all-day stay in a short stay car park costs £2.30 to £2.80 more than the identical stay a few minutes away in a long stay one. If you are parking for the working day or a long afternoon, check the sign at the entrance before you pay.

East Grinstead is the dearest of the three towns at every band, and Burgess Hill the cheapest. On a Sunday or bank holiday all three are effectively the same: about £1 for the whole day.

Villages: bring a pound coin

Four village car parks do not take payment at all. They use parking discs, which cost £1.00 and are bought from shops signposted in the car park, and you set the disc to your arrival time:

• Broad Street car park, Cuckfield: 2 hours, 4 hours or 23 hours.
• Orion car park, Hassocks: 3 hours, no return within 1 hour.
• Trinity car park, Hurstpierpoint: 3 hours or 23 hours, no return within 1 hour.

The Dolphin Leisure Centre in Haywards Heath and the Kings Centre in East Grinstead use a different system again: a touchscreen inside the building where you enter your registration, with a 3 hour limit and no return within 2 hours.

Burgess Hill: the station car parks fill, the shops’ do not

A parking study carried out for Mid Sussex District Council in February 2026 and published in June as evidence to the District Plan examination counted every car in Burgess Hill’s main car parks across a week. The results are a clean split:

• Station cluster, 371 spaces: 75% full at midday on a Thursday. The two railway-operated car parks were essentially full through the morning peak, with Station East at 62 out of 62 spaces at 09:00.
• Town centre council car parks, 639 spaces: never more than 42% full, and that peak was Saturday lunchtime.
• Market Place, 293 spaces: 60% at its busiest, again Saturday lunchtime.
• The Martlets, 165 spaces: 16 cars at Thursday midday, under 10% occupied.

The consultants also found demand markedly lower on Fridays, which they put down to home working. If you are driving into Burgess Hill to shop, the multi-storey is almost always empty. If you are driving to the train, get there before nine or park elsewhere.

There is no park and ride anywhere in Mid Sussex. The nearest thing to one is Haywards Heath station’s 1,069-space car park, which is covered on our trains to London page.

Checking what is closed today

The county council’s programme tells you what is coming. For what is actually shut this morning, including utility works, which the council does not carry out itself:

• one.network for West Sussex is the official map of roadworks and closures, county schemes and utility works together. You can search a road or a town and set a date range, and you can subscribe to email alerts for a specific area.
• West Sussex roadworks and projects carries the council’s own announcements of larger schemes.
• National Highways covers the A23 and M23, which will not appear on the county listings.

Utility works are the ones that catch people out. They can be booked at short notice, they are not in any council programme, and on a road like Leylands Road or London Road a set of two-way signals will move traffic onto residential streets for weeks. The one.network map is the only place all of it appears together.