Mayor opens refurbished Portslade Town Hall

Brighton and Hove mayor Brian Fitch opened the newly refurbished Portslade Town Hall yesterday (Wednesday 11 June).

The building is home to the Victoria Road Housing Office and the Sussex Police Neighbourhood Policing Team.

Brighton and Hove City Council leader Jason Kitcat said: “I am so pleased to see this lovely old building returned to the local community in such a fundamental way.

“The Victoria Road housing office will be incorporated in the hall, alongside the Portslade Neighbourhood Policing Team which will be so convenient for tenants, while the site of the old housing office will be redeveloped for badly needed housing.

Councillor Kitcat added: “Victoria Road Housing Office has moved to the hall as part of a wider plan by the council to redevelop the original site for housing, and will be joined by the new Sussex Police Community Hub.”

Brighton and Hove’s police commander Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp said: “We are very pleased to be working alongside Brighton and Hove City Council in Portslade.

“This project comes a year after we relocated the Hove Neighbourhood Policing Team into Hove Town Hall, a move about which we have received very positive feedback.

“The facilities in Portslade give our officers a local base from which they can respond, enabling them to spend more time out and in the local community.

“The old police boxes in Easthill Park and Hove Park contained no IT equipment and were poorly used.

“Now we will have the opportunity to spend more time with local people and work together to identify and tackle local priorities.”

The mayor, Councillor Fitch, paid tribute to the local community group Purple People Kitchen.

They provided the catering for the opening to give a taster of their hard work and community food projects to come.

They will have use of the new kitchen and the gardens where they will be working with residents to grow their own food allotment-style. They will also be running a food bank every Friday afternoon.

The mayor singled out 92-year-old Ken Chambers who used to work in the building as a teenager when it was the Ronuk recreation hall. Ronuk made Ronseal which had the slogan: “It does what it says on the tin.”

Mr Chambers said that he hadn’t been back to the building since 1940 when he left to become a farm boy until he was old enough to join the Royal Air Force. He served in the RAF Regiment.

The building became Portslade Town Hall in the 1960s.

Councillor Fitch also said that he had heard a lot about Portslade history over the years from talking to Olive Hamilton.

She is the widow of Les Hamilton Senior who chaired Portslade Urban District Council. It became part of Hove in the 1970s and has been part of Brighton and Hove since 1997.

Mrs Hamilton is also the mother of “Young Les”. Councillor Les Hamilton also served on Portslade Urban District Council and now represents South Portslade on Brighton and Hove City Council.

Others present included Councillor Bob Carden, who is retiring at the local elections next year, and former mayor and retired Portslade school teacher Harry Steer.

Councillor Fitch paid tribute to another former mayor Bernard Jordan who, he joked, “escaped from a nursing home”.

The former leader and mayor of the old Hove Borough Council had taken part in the D-Day landings.

Councillor Fitch said that Mr Jordan was told that it wasn’t possible to get tickets for an organised trip to the D-Day commemorations last week.

So he went under his own steam, the mayor said, adding: “Seventy years after D-Day he showed the same determination.”

Portslade Town Hall is likely to host Brighton and Hove City Council meetings next year when work is carried out at Hove Town Hall where most council and committee meetings are currently held.