Chichester Roadworks: A27 Bypass Shut Nightly to 8 Oct

The whole A27 Chichester bypass is booked shut overnight, in both directions, tonight and on the nights of Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September. The closure runs from Fishbourne roundabout to Portfield roundabout, 8pm to 6am.

The Friday night is now confirmed, and it is the Friday of Goodwood Revival. Last week that fifth night sat outside the closure report’s window and we could not stand it up. It is in the report now.

The weekend itself is clear. National Highways has nothing booked on the A27 anywhere in Sussex or east Hampshire on Saturday 19 or Sunday 20 September. The rail picture is the opposite, and the detail is further down.

Everything below was checked on 16 September 2026.

The Chichester roadworks and travel changes to know:

• Tonight, Wednesday 16 September. A27 closed 8pm to 6am, both directions, Fishbourne roundabout to Portfield roundabout. That is the entire bypass.
• Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September. The same closure again, both nights.
• Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September. Nothing booked on the A27. But no Southern trains will run between Three Bridges and Horsham or Barnham, over Revival weekend.
• From Monday 21 September. The report books the whole bypass again on the Monday night. The scheme page says this phase moves west, to Warblington and Stockbridge, and runs to 8 October excluding Fridays.
• Saturday 10 October. Stockbridge Road closes for about seven weeks for gas main replacement.
• Thursday 1 October. West Sussex raises its on-street permit prices. Fourteen days out, it has still not published what they will be.

Stockbridge Road closes for seven weeks from 10 October

This is the closure to plan around. We re-read the notice on 16 September and nothing in it has changed.

Chichester City Council has posted SGN’s notice for Stockbridge Road, dated 6 September. SGN is replacing the gas main, and says it has “no option than to complete this work under a road closure”.

Phase one runs from Saturday 10 October for approximately seven weeks. The closure sits on Stockbridge Road, the A286, from the junction with the A27 roundabout to Grosvenor Road. What SGN’s own leaflet says will happen:

• No through vehicle access between those two junctions.
• Resident and shop vehicle access inside the closure is maintained by a diversion at the Grosvenor Road end. There is no access from the A27 end.
• Pedestrian and cycle access through the closure is maintained.
• Bus routes, including school buses, will be affected. SGN tells passengers to check with the operator.
• Bin collection days stay the same unless the council says otherwise.
• Emergency vehicles get through from the A27 end, with gatekeepers on site 24 hours.

Phase two starts on Monday 30 November and runs about four weeks. That one is on Birdham Road, between the junction with The Meadows and the junction with Strides Court, under multi-way temporary traffic lights rather than a closure.

SGN’s reason, in its own words, is that the section being replaced is “a very old metal gas pipe that has had a number of emergency gas leaks”. It says the closure will be lifted early if phase one finishes inside the seven weeks.

Two closures land two days apart. The A27 overnight work finishes on the night of Thursday 8 October. Stockbridge Road then shuts on Saturday 10 October. Anyone coming into the city from Donnington, Birdham, the Witterings or Selsey gets the A27 roundabout closures first and the loss of their road into town second.

The A27 bypass closures, night by night

National Highways publishes the programme on its South East maintenance schemes page as “A27 Chichester bypass roundabout resurfacing, 1 September to 8 October 2026”. It is resurfacing four roundabouts: Fishbourne, Stockbridge, Whyke and Bognor. Every closure runs 8pm to 6am.

What is actually booked, from the live road closure report stamped as last updated at 15:31 on 15 September and covering 15 to 21 September, is this.

The scheme page publishes a different, and shorter, set of extents for the same nights:

• Tuesday 1 to Friday 4 September: Fishbourne roundabout to Whyke roundabout. Worked.
• Monday 7 to Friday 11 September: Stockbridge roundabout to Bognor roundabout. Worked.
• Monday 14 to Friday 18 September: Whyke roundabout to Portfield roundabout.
• Monday 21 September to Thursday 8 October, excluding Fridays: Warblington to Stockbridge roundabout.

Plan for the longer version. This is the fourth week running that the closure report has booked the whole bypass while the scheme page booked part of it, and the Monday 21 September booking says the same thing about next week. If the phase really is moving west to Warblington, the report has not been told.

Two things the report settled this week that were open last week. The Friday 18 September night is real, not just a line on the scheme page. And Saturday and Sunday are genuinely clear on the A27, which is the road most Revival traffic arrives on.

National Highways has not published a diversion route for this scheme. Its page says only to follow the signed diversions and allow extra time, so we are not going to guess at one. Follow the signs on the night.

The Havant end is busy again

Separately from the Chichester resurfacing, there is work on the A27 around Langstone, Harts Farm and Eastern Road on each of the next three nights and again on the Monday. National Highways describes it as structures work at Langstone plus slip road and lane maintenance either side. None of it is in this district. All of it is on the road Chichester drivers use for Havant, Portsmouth, Hayling Island and the A3(M), so it is worth knowing about before an evening run west.

Weeknights are three times busier than the weekend

Counting every closure listed on the whole National Highways network, day by day, shows why an evening drive is a different proposition from a weekend one:

Around 300 on a weeknight, well under a third of that on a Sunday. The Chichester bypass programme follows the same pattern, which is why it works Monday to Friday nights and leaves the weekend alone.

One caveat on that report, and on this whole page. It lists closures only. An order that imposes a speed limit, a lane restriction or a lay-by closure without shutting the carriageway does not appear in it at all. A quiet closure report is not the same as a clear road.

Market Avenue and Basin Road: the gas main works

SGN’s contractors I&G Contractors Limited have been replacing the gas main on sections of Market Avenue and Basin Road since June. Chichester City Council published the programme as starting Monday 15 June for 13 weeks, which took it to around 14 September.

The phases, as published:

• Phase 1, from 15 June for two weeks: lane closure on Market Avenue, plus an overnight closure of the South Street junction, 8pm to 6am.
• Phase 2, from about 29 June for three weeks: eastbound closure of Market Avenue, with a signed diversion.
• Phase 3, from 13 July: Basin Road closed from its junction with Canal Wharf to the railway crossing.
• Phase 4: lane closures on the one-way section of Basin Road, from the railway crossing to Market Avenue, once phase 3 finishes.

Basin Road was given as eight weeks in total. Pedestrian access is maintained throughout, and access to properties inside a closure is maintained where it is safe. The council warned of a “major impact to bus routes”. The full notice is on the city council’s website.

The programme ran out two days ago and nobody has said whether it was met. We re-read that notice on 16 September. It has not been edited since it was posted on 16 June, and it carries no completion update. The council’s news page has published nothing about Market Avenue since. So we cannot tell you the work has finished, and we are not going to imply it has.

We also could not list which bus stops are currently being missed, on Market Avenue or anywhere else. The Stagecoach service update page the council points readers to still loads as an empty shell for us, with no Chichester entries in it at all. That will matter more in October, when SGN itself says school buses are affected by the Stockbridge Road closure.

The standing lay-by orders on the A27

Two separate orders let National Highways close lay-bys on the bypass, which is why you will find them coned off when nothing appears to be happening.

• The Chichester bypass notice. Traffic notice NH/SE/2026/A27/63, published 6 August 2026, gives notice of 24-hour phased closure of the lay-bys on both carriageways between the Bognor Road roundabout (A259) and the Warblington interchange (A259). The Chichester bypass section was expected to take about three weeks from on or after Tuesday 1 September 2026, with the remaining sites between Fishbourne and Warblington taking about three weeks from on or after Monday 2 November 2026. The order came into force on 30 August 2026 and can run for up to eighteen months.
• The Area 4 order. A separate order covering the A27 between the Warblington interchange and Lancing came into force on 1 July 2026 and runs to 24 December 2027. It authorises closure of any lay-by on the route whenever maintenance needs it, with no diversion.

We still could not read the Public Notice Portal on 16 September. Its search results are drawn by the browser and returned nothing to us, so we cannot say whether a newer traffic notice has been published since, including the statutory order for the Stockbridge Road closure.

Trains

Revival weekend is the one to plan for. Goodwood’s own Getting Here page says that on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September no Southern trains will run between Three Bridges and Horsham or Barnham, with replacement buses at Horsham, Pulborough and Barnham. Direct London Victoria to Chichester trains are still expected to run, via Hove and Worthing. Goodwood’s alternatives from London are Waterloo, changing at Havant, or London Bridge, changing at Brighton.

That notice is still not on the rail sources. We read the National Rail engineering works index again on 16 September and it carries nothing for 19 or 20 September. Southern’s own planned engineering work page still loads only a “loading service updates” shell to us. So Goodwood’s page remains the only source we can point you at, and it is worth checking National Rail again on the Friday.

Getting to the Revival

Goodwood Revival runs Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September. From Goodwood’s own page:

• Car parks open at 0700. Parking is free, on grass.
• Gates open at 0830 for the general public, 0730 for GRRC Members and Fellows, and 0730 for Over the Road.
• Disabled parking is in Car Park D for blue badge holders. Motorcycle parking, with helmet storage, is in Car Parks A and C.
• Goodwood asks bus passengers to end the journey at Chichester bus station, next to the railway station.

Goodwood’s page gives two different sets of shuttle bus hours, and we cannot tell you which is right. One paragraph says the shuttle between the event and Chichester station runs 0700 to 2300 on Friday and Saturday and 0700 to 2200 on Sunday. Another, further down the same page, says 0700 to 2200 on Friday and Saturday and 0700 to 2100 on Sunday. If you are relying on a late shuttle, work to the earlier of the two times.

And remember the road: the A27 bypass is booked shut from 8pm on the Friday night, both directions, Fishbourne to Portfield. If you are driving home late on the Friday, that is the road you would have used.

Parking in Chichester

Chichester District Council runs the city’s car parks. All are open 24 hours a day and all take MiPermit as well as payment at the machine. Charges apply Monday to Saturday 8am to 8pm, including bank and public holidays, and Sunday 10am to 5pm. The long-stay car parks at Avenue de Chartres, Basin Road and Cattle Market charge to 6pm rather than 8pm.

Fourteen days out, the 1 October permit increase still has no published price. The council’s car parks page carries a notice that West Sussex County Council will increase on-street permit prices on 1 October 2026. That is on-street residents’ and visitors’ permits, not the district council car parks.

We followed the link again on 16 September. The county’s permit page is still stamped 28 October 2025, and its charges PDF, which the server still reports as last modified on 2 October 2025, is still headed “West Sussex On-Street Parking Charges 2025-2026 (Effective 1st October 2025)”. So the rates you are being told will rise are still these ones:

• Full day primary resident permit, Chichester: £63.00 a year, or £34.00 for six months. A low emission vehicle pays £48.00 and £26.00.
• A second permit at the same address costs double: £126.00 a year, or £95.00 low emission.
• Chichester Zone E is charged separately and much higher: £209 a year for a first resident permit, £157 low emission. A second Zone E permit is £260, or £195 low emission.
• Part-day permits in Chichester cost more than in any other West Sussex town: £49.00 a year against £35.00 in Billingshurst, Horsham and Worthing.
• Visitor permits: a book of 10 costs £6.00. A daily 8-hour visitor permit is £2.40, a weekly one £14.40, and a weekly 12-hour Chichester S permit £25.20.
• Non-resident permits: £380.00 a year, or £285.00 low emission.

Nothing on either council’s site says how much any of that goes up by, so we are not going to guess. If you are due to renew, it is worth checking whether renewing before the end of September holds the current rate.

The car park tariffs below were re-checked against the council’s own page on 16 September 2026 and are unchanged.

The gap between the tariffs is the single most useful thing to know about parking here. Four hours costs £10.00 in a central short-stay car park and £4.60 in a long stay. The car parks on the central short-stay tariff are Baffins Lane, Little London, Market Avenue and St John’s, all close to the Cross. A five-minute walk out to a long-stay bay halves the bill.

Three city car parks are worth knowing by name:

• Northgate (PO19 1BL), 907 spaces, the largest in the city, long stay, with 13 accessible bays and two electric vehicle bays.
• Cattle Market (PO19 1JW), 836 spaces, long stay, 10 accessible bays, height restriction 2.3 metres.
• East Pallant (PO19 1UF), 165 spaces, nine accessible bays and two electric vehicle bays. This is the nearest car park to the cathedral, which has no visitor parking of its own.

Florence Road (PO19 7PY), 20 spaces, is free at all times, maximum stay three hours, no return within three hours.

Market Road and the northern part of Orchard Street are season-ticket only Monday to Friday, and pay and display at weekends and on bank holidays. There is no park and ride in the district, so every drive into the city ends in a city-centre car park.

Parking out in the district

The council also runs the coastal and market-town car parks, and several have seasonal tariffs. The summer season rate at Bracklesham Lane and the other seasonal car parks runs 1 April to 31 October, so it has about six weeks left.

• Bosham, Bosham Lane (PO18 8HT), 379 spaces. Charges 8am to 6pm every day. Two coach bays and a bus stop.
• Bracklesham Lane, Bracklesham Bay (PO20 8HP), 97 spaces. Seasonal charges all year, 8am to 6pm.
• Marine Drive, West Wittering (PO20 8HE), 65 bays plus about 150 on grass. Seasonal, 8am to 6pm. This is the council car park, not the beach car park run by the West Wittering Estate, which charges separately and more.
• Selsey East Beach (PO20 0SZ), roughly 181 spaces, height restriction 2.1 metres, seasonal charges all year.
• Midhurst Grange Road (GU29 9LT), 303 spaces, and Petworth Pound Street (GU28 0DX), 236 spaces. Both charge Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm.
• Crossfield, Fernhurst (GU27 3JL) and Sylvia Beaufoy, Petworth (GU28 0ET) are free at all times.

Why the A27 matters so much here

Chichester has one road that carries almost everything. The A27 bypass runs along the southern edge of the city, and every east-west journey through the district uses part of it. West to east, its junctions are the Fishbourne roundabout, the Stockbridge roundabout, the Whyke roundabout and the Bognor Road roundabout, then it continues past Westhampnett towards Boxgrove and Fontwell.

That single carriageway of dependency is why a closure at one roundabout reroutes the whole city rather than one street. It is also why the Stockbridge Road closure in October will be felt so widely. Stockbridge Road is the spoke that connects the Stockbridge roundabout to the city centre, and the peninsula villages south of the bypass have no other direct route in.

The long-term picture is that nothing large is funded. West Sussex County Council states plainly that the Chichester A27 scheme was cancelled in 2017, and that the Arundel, Worthing and Lancing schemes were cancelled in 2024. The county council is working with Transport for the South East to press the government to put A27 improvements back into the Road Investment Strategy, and in the meantime is pursuing small-scale improvements alongside new development. The capacity of the A27 was also one of the constraints the council put to the Planning Inspectors when it argued for a lower housing target, which is covered on the planning news page.

Local schemes in progress

A285 Chichester to Tangmere active travel corridor. West Sussex County Council approved this for its capital programme in May 2026. It will run from Chichester city centre out to Tangmere via St Pancras, Westhampnett Road, Church Road, Footpath 553 and Shopwhyke Lakes, in two phases. The plan includes a two-way cycle track on the north side of St Pancras with the road reduced to one traffic lane, a two-way cycle track on the south side of Westhampnett Road that removes around ten on-street parking spaces, bus priority at the Westhampnett Road and St James Road lights, and raised crossings on the side roads. The council is developing initial designs and expects to finish that stage by May 2027, with a design review in summer 2027. There is no construction date.

Chichester public realm improvements. West Sussex County Council lists this among its city centre projects and is running it through its Your Voice consultation site. The council’s roadworks and projects index carries no dates or current status for it.

Getting out without the car

Chichester station has 202 parking spaces and a direct half-hourly train to London Victoria in 1 hour 36 minutes, with Gatwick Airport an hour away on the same service. Fares, season ticket prices and the full timetable are on the trains to London page.

Where to check before you set off

• National Highways road closure report for the next seven days on the A27, A3 and M27, night by night. This is the one to check before an evening drive, and on the evidence of this scheme it is more up to date than the scheme page. It lists closures only, not restrictions.
• National Highways South East maintenance schemes for the full phase dates and, where they exist, the signed diversions.
• Chichester City Council news for city-centre utility closures. This is where both the Market Avenue and the Stockbridge Road gas works were published, and it beat every other source to the October closure.
• Public Notice Portal for the statutory traffic orders covering the district, which give the exact extent of a closure and the diversion.
• West Sussex County Council roadworks and projects for local road schemes and the live roadworks map on one.network.
• Chichester District Council car parks for tariffs, spaces and MiPermit location codes.

More Chichester local information: house prices, trains to London, planning news, bin collection days and things to do in Chichester.