The A2280 is a southern extension of the newly aligned A22 into Eastbourne.
The road starts at the southern end of the A22 Highfield Link, at a roundabout where it also meets the A2290 Lottbridge Drove. It heads roughly southwestwards along Cross Levels Way. This is all S2, rising to cross the railway line and then giving access to a retail park at a roundabout. The next roundabout, south of the District General Hospital, links to nothing at all – although plans to build a new housing estate were in the pipeline when the road was built. The route ends at another roundabout, this time with the A2021, which takes the traffic into town as well as giving access to the aforementioned hospital.
History
The new access to Eastbourne via the A22/A2280 was actually built in reverse!
Cross Levels Way was built, opened, and classified first; the Highfield Link was added a few years later and originally opened with the A2280 number. The northern extension of that road, the A22 Golden Jubilee Way, was finally opened in 2002 (it would have been opened sooner, but East Sussex County Council got it built a couple of years before the Highways Agency got with the programme and built the A27 Polegate bypass to link it to!). It would have made sense to then renumber a few roads so that the A22 was the continuous route into Eastbourne, in which case the A2280 would have ceased to exist – but it looks as though East Sussex County Council have decided that only the Highfield Link section of A2280 needs renumbering, so the situation remains as it is, with Eastbourne town full of 4-digit A-roads, while its principal access road gives up as soon as it sniffs the sea! Having said that, town-centre traffic is signposted along the A2290.
