Located in northern Burgess Hill, it primarily serves the town's neighbourhoods of World's End and Sheddingdean.

Despite its name, the station is not located in Wivelsfield village, which actually lies approximately 2.3 miles (3.7 km) to the northeast, in the Lewes District of East Sussex.

However, when the railway later bought Parliamentary authority to abandon their planned changes, they were required to provide a replacement station to the north of the junction on the present site.

[4] On 5 March 2020, Southern Railway, Mid Sussex District Council and Network Rail announced that £1 million of funding had been awarded by the Department for Transport in order to facilitate accessibility improvements at Wivelsfield station as part of the "Access for All" programme.

[5] Local MPs met with Network Rail in April 2022 to discuss potential options to improve accessibility, presenting two options: a new footbridge with lifts to cross between the two platforms; or a lift directly to the platform from street-level nearby the current subway entrance.

In Autumn 2015 Network Rail released the Sussex Area Route Study, where two options for the proposed grade separation of Keymer Junction are detailed, both of which would transform the station dramatically.