“NEW AMUSEMENTS” proclaim bold letters above the Art Deco arcade added in the 1920s to Worthing’s Grade I Victorian pier. It’s a promise that West Sussex’s largest town is trying to live up to once again.

But Worthing has long lacked the glamour of Brighton to the east, or the upmarket air of Chichester to the west. Its official website lists as a main claim to fame the town’s hosting of the world bowls championship.

Worthing had a touch more panache in Victorian times — Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest while living at Esplanade Court, and the Arabic scholar Edward William Lane translated the Thousand and One Nights at 4 Union Place.

Royalty, too, gave Worthing the seal of approval: the high-living Edward VII became a frequent visitor to Beach House, a fine Regency villa on the Brighton Road, in 1907-10. If he had returned in 1911, he would have seen the opening of a building that has become a symbol of Worthing’s revamp.

The Dome opened that year as an entertainment palace opposite the pier, offering such period pleasures as ballroom dancing and billiards before its conversion into a cinema for the infant medium of film in 1921.

Although it was one of Britain’s oldest working cinemas, years of neglect led to the threat of demolition in the 1970s until it was saved by a vociferous campaign. The building was eventually bought by a local trust, which has spent much of the past decade on its gradual restoration, helped by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. With a new bar, dining space, roof and façade, the Dome should emerge from the scaffolding in its full glory this August.

Parsonage Row, a line of 15th-century timber cottages in Tarring, one and a half miles from the centre of town, may be Worthing’s oldest buildings, but most of the town is solidly Victorian or Edwardian. Notable exceptions are the Georgian glories of Ambrose Place and Park Crescent and the Art Deco of the Connaught Theatre and the Beach Hotel.

But Worthing combines historic architecture with a young population. The town is attracting fewer pensioners and more Brightonians in their thirties who have been priced out of “London-on-Sea”. Young locals see plentiful jobs and improved facilities.

“Worthing has been lucky,” says Dale Thomson, who is overseeing a long-term development plan drawn up by Edaw, the consultants behind East London’s Olympic regeneration. “We’ve never suffered from a major loss in the tourist trade as Eastbourne has, or the social problems of places such as Hastings, so we’re starting with a fairly clean slate.”

Improving the appeal of Worthing’s five miles (8km) of seafront is a key factor. “Pretty, but there’s nothing to do” has been a constant complaint about Worthing, one which Thomson acknowledges. Rather than a developer’s free-for-all, however, the plan is to create seafront zones over the next few years offering different kinds of attractions — the buzz of an “entertainment zone” here, quieter pleasures in a “recreation zone” there.

But having saved £100,000-plus by buying in Worthing, Brighton incomers want instant gratification to stem nostalgia for their former home town. Restaurants such as the Fish Factory in Brighton Road and Food in New Street have opened to meet that demand, complementing established spots such as Indigo at the Edwardian-style Ardington Hotel in Steyne Gardens and the upmarket Parsonage in Tarring High Street. Red, in Montague Place, is the latest bar bringing gloss to Worthing nightlife.

Daniel Clarke, Red’s owner and chef, is bullish about the town’s prospects. “Worthing in the next three to four years is going to turn into a mini-Brighton,” he says. “I’m not here just for myself, I want the town to be buoyant.”

While young professionals are bagging city-centre one-bedroom flats for £120,000, the leafy streets of West Worthing are drawing many new arrivals, tempted by distinctive Victorian semi-detached houses for £250,000 and up. Between the seafront and Montague Street, side streets offer brightly painted cottages for £220,000.

Efforts are being made to manage new developments rather than having a free-for-all. Plans to demolish the Aquarena swimming pool on the seafront and build Worthing’s first boutique hotel in its place, for example, will remain on hold until a new pool is in place at the Teville Gate development, half a mile back from the shore, which will have 250 new homes, plus shops, a cinema and other entertainments.

Plans at Teville Gate include a bingo hall, as if Worthing wants to ensure that a flavour of the old remains amid the new. Elsewhere it’s the same. By the beach road the Fifties café Macaris is a chrome-filled beacon amid nondescript coffee places, promising “Knickerbocker Glory and assorted sundaes”. At the shore end of the pier, Café Denton is a charming Art Deco time-warp with fabulous sea views.

If you walk along Montague Street, familiar high-street names give way to old Worthing emporia offering the likes of antique clocks and second-hand books. “There’s not many streets where you can see a butcher, a fish shop and a baker together,” says Michael Brown of the fishmonger Silverthornes, now into its 99th year selling the catches from the boats that still come in east of the pier.

Old Worthing or new Brighton — will the town’s master plan find a happy balance between the two?

Worthing Borough Council: www.worthing.gov.uk, Historic Worthing: www.visitworthing.co.uk, Worthing Dome: www.worthingdome.com

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