The Villages Around Bognor Regis, Compared
Of the eight villages around Bognor Regis, West Sussex, only Felpham, Rose Green and North Bersted have their own GP surgery and state primary schooling.
Felpham and North Bersted get a bus every 15 minutes, Sundays included; Elmer gets none on Sundays. Middleton-on-Sea has the best-rated bathing water, and Aldwick Bay, Elmer Sands and Pagham Beach have private roads or rules that affect removal lorries.
By median price paid, Aldwick is the dearest area of the eight and North Bersted the cheapest, and the private estates at Aldwick Bay, Elmer Sands and Pagham Beach have rules that bind your removal lorry. This guide compares the eight on the things that actually differ: doctors, schools, buses, private estates, beaches, flood policy, people and prices. For what each place feels like, see our guide to living in Bognor Regis.
The eight villages at a glance
Own GP and primary: 3 of 8, Felpham, Rose Green, North Bersted
Bus every 15 min, 7 days: 2 of 8, Felpham, North Bersted
Dearest to cheapest: £450,000 to £275,000, Aldwick to North Bersted, median price paid
Best-rated bathing water: Middleton-on-Sea, Excellent every year classified since 2015
Where the eight villages are
Pagham, Nyetimber, Rose Green and Aldwick lie west of Bognor Regis, North Bersted to the north-west, and Felpham, Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer to the east. Positions from Ordnance Survey place points; coastline simplified.
Pagham £345,000* median price paid GPBranch, weekday mornings SchoolNone BusEvery 20 min; 30 on Sundays 65+38.0% aged 65+
Nyetimber £345,000* median price paid GPNone SchoolNone BusEvery 20 min; 30 on Sundays 65+38.0% aged 65+†
Rose Green £345,000* median price paid GPOwn surgery SchoolInfant and junior schools BusEvery 20 min; 30 on Sundays 65+40.0% aged 65+†
Aldwick £450,000 median price paid GPIn the parish, not the old village SchoolNone in the core BusEvery 20 min; 30 on Sundays 65+40.0% aged 65+
North Bersted £275,000 median price paid GPOwn surgery SchoolOwn primary BusEvery 15 min, Sundays too 65+19.9% aged 65+
Felpham £360,500 median price paid GPOwn surgery SchoolTwo state primaries BusEvery 15 min, Sundays too 65+29.5% aged 65+
Middleton-on-Sea £379,000 median price paid GPBranch, weekdays SchoolNone BusHourly Mon–Sat; none on Sunday 65+39.9% aged 65+
Elmer £379,000* median price paid GPNone SchoolNone BusHourly Mon–Sat; none on Sunday 65+39.9% aged 65+†
Cards run west to east, as on the map. GP sites: NHS organisation register. Schools: Ofsted. Buses: daytime, from current timetables, November 2026. Median price paid: ONS, year to March 2026, by statistical area; *Rose Green, Nyetimber and Pagham share one ONS area, as do Elmer and Middleton-on-Sea. Aged 65+: Census 2021, by parish; †counted in the parent parish (Rose Green in Aldwick, Nyetimber in Pagham, Elmer in Middleton-on-Sea).
Which village near Bognor Regis suits you?
Quick picks
Life without a car: Felpham or North Bersted, a surgery, a primary and a bus every 15 minutes, seven days a week
Children at primary: Felpham, Rose Green, North Bersted, the only three with state primaries of their own; elsewhere check the catchment map
Private-estate living: Aldwick Bay, Elmer Sands, Pagham Beach, own roads and rules; no full-time surgery or state primary in the village; Elmer has no Sunday bus
A long-term coastal outlook: Hold-the-line frontages, Elmer, Middleton, Felpham and Aldwick; Pagham to Church Norton is different
Downsizing? Our guide to retiring to Bognor Regis covers that move in detail. Chosen your village? See our house removals and storage services, or ask us for a quote.
Which village has the most on its doorstep?
Felpham, Rose Green and North Bersted. Each has its own GP surgery and state primary schooling.
Own surgery and school Felpham · Rose Green · North Bersted
Felpham has two primaries, Bishop Tufnell and Downview. Rose Green has an infant school and a junior school; the junior school was rated Outstanding in 2024. North Bersted’s surgery is Bersted Green, and Bartons Primary is in the same parish.
Branch surgery only Pagham · Middleton-on-Sea
Pagham’s branch, the Arthur Griffiths Clinic, is open 8.30 to 11.30am on weekdays and is run from Grove House Surgery in Rose Green. Middleton’s branch belongs to a practice in Yapton and is open 8.30am to 6.30pm on weekdays, closed for lunch. Neither has a state primary.
Neither in the village Aldwick · Nyetimber · Elmer
No surgery or state primary in the village itself. Aldwick’s parish does include West Meads Surgery and the Rose Green schools, but they are a walk away from the old village and the Aldwick Bay Estate.
For secondary school, the main state schools nearby are Felpham Community College and The Regis School in Bognor. Both were judged good by Ofsted, and both offered a place to every applicant for September 2025 and September 2026, according to the county’s admissions booklet. When a school is full, its admission rules decide who gets in; for county-run schools such as Felpham, children in the catchment rank above those outside it. Check yours on the county’s catchment map.
Can you live in the villages without a car?
In Felpham and North Bersted, easily. Route 700 runs every 15 minutes in the daytime, Sundays included, and through the night between Bognor and Chichester, which takes in North Bersted. Felpham’s last weekday bus leaves just after 1am, and on Sundays the morning service starts at 5.32am.
How often the bus comes
Route 700 every 15 minutes daily; 600 every 20, and every 30 on Sundays; 63 hourly, none on Sundays. Current timetables, November 2026; evenings are less frequent.
Aldwick, Rose Green, Nyetimber and Pagham are on route 600 to Chichester: every 20 minutes Monday to Saturday, every 30 on Sundays. Route 63 serves Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer hourly Monday to Saturday and not at all on Sundays.
What do the private estates mean on moving day?
Aldwick Bay Estate, Elmer Sands and Pagham Beach Estate are private, with their own roads and rules, and Middleton-on-Sea has private estates too. Those rules bind your removals firm as much as your builder, so they are worth knowing before you book.
Aldwick Bay Estate: what the gate asks of a removal lorry
Vehicles over 26 tonnes should not enter; the limit is 20mph; one gate opens by key fob and the Barrack Lane gate is usually open. Residents email the estate company their moving-in date, and damage to its roads or verges must be made good or paid for.
Aldwick Bay Estate Aldwick
Residents bought the estate outright after the Great Storm of 1987, and a residents’ company now owns its roads, verges and beach. Each house carries a share in that company, returned through your solicitor when you sell. Dogs on leads, tidy gardens, power tools only from 8am to 5.30pm on weekdays. No bonfires, fireworks, routine parking on estate roads, or short-term and holiday lets.
Elmer Sands Elmer
Ask permission in advance for heavy plant or deliveries of materials for building work. Virtually no pavements or kerbs. Parking and security firms on summer weekends and bank holidays.
Pagham Beach Estate Pagham
Private, unadopted roads with no pavements and grass verges, including West Front Road, East Front Road, Harbour Road and Lagoon Road. An Area of Special Character since October 1995.
Middleton and Felpham Middleton · Felpham
Middleton-on-Sea has its own private estates, including the Middleton-on-Sea Estate. Its neighbourhood plan, made in January 2026, calls Yapton Road, the main way in, “dangerously narrow” for the lorries that use it. Felpham’s 2014 neighbourhood plan, since superseded, called the Roundle Estate roads “narrow but adequate for the estate”.
None of this makes the estates hard to move into. We check weight limits, gates and road widths at the survey, as our Bognor Regis removals page explains. Moving to one of the villages? Ask us for a quote and tell us the estate name, if there is one. We’ll check its rules before the day.
Where can you park?
None of the villages is in a residents’ parking zone. Bognor’s controlled parking zone covers 56 streets, all in the town centre and along the seafront, so loading a lorry in the villages needs no residents’ permit.
Arun council car parks for the beach
Free, 24-hour maximum for now: 3 car parks, Links Avenue and Grassmere in Felpham, Shrubbs Field in Middleton-on-Sea
Free for two hours, then paid: 1 car park, West Park, Aldwick
Paid: 2 car parks, Culver Road in Felpham, Rock Gardens on Aldwick Road
Source: Arun District Council free car parks and car park pages, checked November 2026. Pagham, Nyetimber, Rose Green, North Bersted and Elmer have no Arun council car park.
Are the beaches the same?
No. All of them are shingle at the top with some sand at low tide, but the Environment Agency’s profiles tell them apart. Middleton-on-Sea has “large expanses of sand” at low tide. Felpham is groyned shingle with sand and rock pools at low water. Pagham is mostly shingle, with a line of beach houses behind it.
One beach shape, three variations
Bathing water ratings, 2021 to 2025
Environment Agency classifications for the designated bathing waters along this stretch, 2021 to 2025.
- Middleton-on-Sea ’21 Excellent’22 Excellent’23 Excellent’24 Excellent’25 Excellent
- Felpham ’21 Good’22 Good’23 Good’24 Good’25 Good
- Pagham ’21 Excellent’22 Excellent’23 Good’24 Good’25 Good
- Bognor Regis East ’21 Excellent’22 Good’23 Good’24 Sufficient’25 Sufficient
- Bognor Regis (Aldwick) ’21 Good’22 Poor’23 Poor’24 Poor’25 Poor
Source: Environment Agency bathing water data. Elmer, Aldwick Bay, Rose Green, Nyetimber and North Bersted have no designated bathing water of their own.
Water quality is where the beaches differ. Middleton-on-Sea has been rated Excellent every year it has been classified since 2015. The Bognor Regis (Aldwick) bathing water, west of the pier, has been rated Poor four years running, so signs advise against bathing there each season. Beaches stay open whatever the rating.
The rules changed in November 2025 Five Poor years
After five Poor years in a row, the Environment Agency must advise ministers whether the water can realistically be brought up to standard. Advice against bathing becomes permanent if ministers agree it can’t, if they don’t back a clean-up, or if it still fails after a set period.
Lifeguards and a private beach Summer 2026
In 2026, RNLI lifeguards patrolled Littlehampton’s East Beach daily in summer, and Bognor Regis beach, east of the pier, on summer weekends and bank holidays. The village beaches had none. Aldwick Bay’s beach is private: the residents’ company owns it down to the average spring high-tide line.
How exposed are the villages to flooding and erosion?
Most of this coast is planned to “hold the line” to 2105, which means keeping the defences roughly where they are. The exception is Pagham to Church Norton, planned for managed realignment, and the beach in front of Pagham Beach Estate has been eroding since 2009.
The official plan for each stretch of coast, to 2105
- Pagham to Church Norton: managed realignment, a more naturally functioning coastline
- Aldwick to Pagham: hold the line
- Felpham to Aldwick: hold the line
- Middleton-on-Sea: hold the line
- Elmer: hold the line
Source: Beachy Head to Selsey Bill Shoreline Management Plan.
The Environment Agency has named flood warning areas for the coastal parts of Pagham and Elmer, and for coastal Bognor, including Felpham, North and South Bersted and Shripney. A fourth covers Felpham on the Aldingbourne Rife. No area is named after Middleton-on-Sea, Aldwick, Nyetimber or Rose Green. That is not the same as no risk.
What the council will and will not tell you Within 200 metres of the high-water mark
Arun District Council is blunt about the limits. Its coastal guidance says there are no published data on erosion risk for individual homes. Neither the council nor the Environment Agency has a duty to protect the coast. If you are buying within 200 metres of the high-water mark, the council will give you its coastal information through local land charges. On this coast, ask for it.
Pagham Beach Estate has its own planning rules. Under an interim framework agreed in October 2021, no new development is permitted there. Replacing a building is allowed only where the flood and erosion risk is not rising and no more people will live there, with floor levels at least 300mm above predicted flood levels. If you plan to extend, that framework decides what is possible.
Pagham Beach, 2003 to 2021: what the shingle has done
- 2003 A shingle spit at Church Norton starts to grow. Until 2012 it has little to no effect on the homes themselves.
- 2009 The beach in front of the homes starts to erode as the harbour mouth shifts.
- 2013 A sloping rock wall costing about £500,000 is built to protect the 15 homes most at risk.
- 2013 to 2015 Storms strip shingle at West Front Road. In places the beach shrinks to under 10 metres.
- 2016 In April the spit breaks through completely. Since then, the beach in front of East Front Road has been eroding.
- 2021 A local trust gets approval for a temporary new channel through the spit, with a new island for nesting terns (October).
Source: Arun District Council. The council watches the beach width: at 20 metres it is a warning, at 15 metres it designs a scheme, at 10 metres it starts emergency works.
Elsewhere, a scheme led by the Environment Agency has significantly reduced the flood risk to 88 properties in Pagham’s far south-west corner. As the council itself puts it: “There can be no guarantee that homes are 100% safe.”
Elmer: how the estate was protected
In Elmer, the storms of November 1984 and April 1985 brought the worst flooding the Elmer Sands estate had seen. Eight rock islands were then built offshore, finished in September 1993 at a cost of £5.5 million.
Who lives there, and what do homes cost?
Aldwick, Middleton-on-Sea and Pagham have the oldest populations: around four in ten residents are 65 or over, about twice the share for England. Most households own their homes, and in those three villages more than half own outright. Detached houses make up more than half of homes in Aldwick, Felpham and Middleton, while in Bognor’s town wards almost half are flats.
Share of residents aged 65 and over
Census 2021, by parish.
Aldwick (incl. Rose Green) 40.0%
Middleton-on-Sea (incl. Elmer) 39.9%
Pagham (incl. Nyetimber) 38.0%
Felpham 29.5%
Bersted (incl. North Bersted) 19.9%
Bognor Regis town 20.2%
England 18.4%
Source: ONS Census 2021 parish profiles.
What homes sold for
Median price paid, year to March 2026, by ONS statistical area.
Aldwick £450,000
Middleton-on-Sea (incl. Elmer) £379,000
Felpham £360,500
Nyetimber & Pagham (incl. Rose Green) £345,000
North Bersted £275,000
Bognor Regis Central £175,000
Source: ONS, median price paid by small area. Areas are statistical, so the edges don’t match village boundaries exactly.
Aldwick is the dearest area, North Bersted the cheapest. Felpham, younger and better served, costs about £90,000 less than Aldwick. For other price measures, see our practical guide to moving to Bognor Regis, and if you are coming from the capital, our guide to moving from London to Bognor Regis.
Which parish is your village in?
Village names do not follow parish lines Check the parish, not the envelope
Rose Green sits in Aldwick parish; Nyetimber in Pagham parish; Elmer in Middleton-on-Sea parish. Bersted Green Primary, despite its name, is in Bognor Regis parish, not Bersted. Check the parish and the walking distance, not the name on the envelope.
About this guide. Every fact was checked against its source in October 2026, then checked again independently, and re-checked on 2 November 2026. Key sources are linked in the text, charts and tables. We don’t name shops, pubs or bus companies.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Felpham, Rose Green and North Bersted. Each has its own GP surgery and state primary schooling, and Felpham and North Bersted have a bus every 15 minutes, seven days a week.
Nyetimber and Elmer have neither, and Aldwick has neither in the old village, though West Meads Surgery and the Rose Green schools are in its parish. Pagham and Middleton-on-Sea have branch surgeries: Pagham’s opens weekday mornings, Middleton’s weekdays 8.30am to 6.30pm.
Most easily in Felpham and North Bersted, on route 700 every 15 minutes in the daytime, Sundays included. Aldwick, Rose Green, Nyetimber and Pagham have a bus every 20 minutes, Monday to Saturday. Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer have an hourly bus Monday to Saturday and no regular Sunday service.
On some private estates, yes. Aldwick Bay Estate says vehicles over 26 tonnes should not enter and asks residents to email their moving-in date. Elmer Sands asks for permission in advance for heavy plant and deliveries for building work. Pagham Beach Estate’s roads are private and unadopted. We check all of this at the survey.
Aldwick is the dearest of the eight, with a median price paid of £450,000, more than half of its homes detached, and the Aldwick Bay Estate. Felpham costs about £90,000 less at £360,500, is younger (29.5% aged 65 and over against 40.0%), and has its own surgery, two state primaries and a bus every 15 minutes seven days a week.
Middleton-on-Sea, rated Excellent every year it has been classified since 2015. Felpham and Pagham were rated Good in 2025. The Bognor Regis (Aldwick) bathing water has been rated Poor four years running, from 2022 to 2025.
