Tide Tables, Tidal Roads: Planning a Cab When Shoreham Takes Water

There's a particular kind of morning in Shoreham. The wind is up from the south-west, the moon is new or full, and the tide is running about as high as it gets. You look down Ferry Road and the puddle at the end of it isn't a puddle. It's the harbour, and it's come to visit.

Anyone who has lived on this stretch of coast for more than a couple of winters knows the pattern. What's less obvious is how quickly that pattern rearranges a taxi journey — not just the obvious flooded bit, but the hour of congestion that follows, the rat-runs that fill up, and the fact that the route your driver took happily in August is one they won't touch in February.

The tide is a timetable nobody checks

Shoreham sits where the Adur meets the sea, and the harbour mouth is narrow. That geometry means the water doesn't need a storm to get above itself — a big spring tide is often enough, and a spring tide with an onshore wind and low atmospheric pressure behind it is enough to send water over the quayside and along the low roads.

Two high tides a day, roughly twelve and a half hours apart, and the biggest ones cluster around the new and full moons. Which is to say: this is a diary problem before it's a weather problem. Tide tables are published for Shoreham and they're free to look at. If your appointment, flight or shift falls within an hour either side of a big high tide in a spring period, you're booking into the risky window whether or not it's raining.

Where the water actually goes

On Shoreham Beach, the low ground near Beach Green and the Ferry Road approach is the classic culprit — it doesn't take much to make that stretch unpleasant in a car, and it's the main way on and off the spit for anyone driving. When it's compromised, there is no clever short cut. The alternatives are longer, and everybody finds them at the same time.

Along the town side, the riverside and Ropetackle end gets splashy, and the crossing points over the Adur become the chokepoint for the whole area. Pedestrians still have the footbridge, which is a genuine option if you're able-bodied and travelling light — but it's no use with a suitcase or a bad hip.

Further west, the A259 through Southwick and Fishersgate is low and exposed in places, and the old village lanes fill with parked cars the moment the main road slows. Lancing's seafront and the Widewater end can take water over the road too, and the Brighton Road picks up the displaced traffic. In Worthing, Marine Parade and the roads behind it suffer when the sea gets lively.

Why the dry-day route isn't the wet-day route

Here's the thing worth understanding before you ring: on a normal day, the fastest route to Worthing from Shoreham Beach is straightforward. On a spring tide, a driver looking at standing water on the low road has three choices — sit in it and crawl, take a much longer loop, or refuse the job. Good operators will take the loop and tell you honestly that it'll cost a few minutes more.

That isn't a driver being difficult. Salt water in a vehicle's brakes and underside is an expensive problem, and a cab that's off the road for a week doesn't help anybody. So don't be surprised if your driver declines to nose through a flooded section, and don't push. The alternative route is the one that gets you there.

What to say when you book

Keep it short and specific:

• Where exactly you are. "Near the beach" is no help. Name the road and whether you're on the water side of it.
• Which crossing you'd expect to use. If you're on the Beach and heading west, say so — the operator can think about the route before the car arrives.
• What time you have to be there. Not the pickup time, the arrival time. There's a difference on a flood tide, and it's usually forty minutes.
• Whether you need to be dropped at a door rather than near one. If you're on crutches or with a buggy, standing water at the kerb is a real problem.
• That you'd like a call if the driver thinks the route is affected. A quick heads-up beats a silent wait.

Buffer time: how much is enough

On a normal day, ten minutes of slack into Brighton or Worthing is generous. Around a high spring tide, add twenty to thirty minutes and think of it as insurance rather than padding. If you're catching a train from Shoreham or Worthing, take the earlier one. If you're on a flight from Gatwick, book the cab earlier than you think you need to — an hour of coastal congestion doesn't evaporate once you reach the A27.

The same logic applies to the return leg. A driver heading towards the coast in the late afternoon of a big tide day may be slower than the morning's estimate suggested, and a booking made two weeks earlier won't have accounted for it. Reconfirm on the day.

The congestion that follows the water

Even when the flooding is minor, the knock-on is rarely minor. One lane out of action on the coast road means everything backs up towards the Adur crossings, which means the town centre locks, which means the school run and the school run's grandparents all discover the same back lanes together.

Small habits help. If you can shift a journey to an hour after high tide, do. If you can't, be ready five minutes early so the driver isn't circling a blocked street. And if you live somewhere the water reaches, park the bins and the recycling off the pavement before the tide — partly for the driver's sake, partly because nobody wants to be wading past a tipped-over wheelie bin at seven in the morning.

A closing thought

Coastal weather gets the headlines, but around here it's often the ordinary tides that cause the trouble. Two minutes with a tide table before you book is worth more than any amount of watching the sky. The sea doesn't read the road signs, and neither, thankfully, do the drivers who know this harbour best.