Eastbourne suffers from poor road and rail links to London.
Yup! Despite being so close geographically to London, Europe (via Newhaven, Folkestone and Dover) the Sussex coast must be amongst the most poorly served areas of any region in the UK with respect to rail or road infrastructure.
There is still no continuous south coast rail or highway class road route linking the European ports in Kent with the coastal conurbations of Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Worthing, Chichester to Portsmouth and beyond. Only Brighton has good rail links with London and coastal destinations west as far as Littlehampton or Bognor. A27 Road connections east of Lewes or between Worthing and Arundel are appalling. If Eastbourne is badly connected, its even worse for Hastings. The south coast has a significant population should have appropriate infrastructure with connections to London and the rest of the country without having to use the M25.
Perhaps too, consideration should be given to rerouting the A27 immediately west of Chichester to enable the Fishbourne Roman Palace, Britains' most significant villa, to be more fully excavated and understood.
I would like to hope that belatedly infrastructure will improve along the south coast, but sadly, this little corner of the SE is wholly forgotten, and most unfortunately the County politicos are almost all NIMBYs in every sense of the word. There are few plans for any road improvements whatsoever in the coming decades, none with respect to rail, and no political will at the county, regional or national levels.