Decking approved for area outside Hove Town Hall

Decking has been approved for a public area outside Hove Town Hall where one of the tenants said that it would breather new life into an underused space.

Platform 9, which rents co-working space and runs a café, was granted planning permission for the decking, having said that it would like to use the proposed decked area to hold events.

These could include occasional markets and as well as other events in the square on the Church Road side of Hove Town Hall at evenings and weekends.

Labour councillor Gary Wilkinson, who represents Central Hove ward, objected to the plans, saying that they “encroached on public space” and would affect nearby listed buildings.

Fellow Labour councillor, Clare Moonan, who represents the same ward, said that the decking should not be used after 9pm.

She persuaded Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee – which met at the town hall yesterday (Wednesday 6 July) – to back the cut-off time as a condition of granting planning permission.

She said that the decking would enhance the area but had concerns because the area was a social space for a workplace café, not a restaurant or pub.

Councillor Moonan said: “I do have concerns, even if it is one or two events … 9pm seems a bit late but an appropriate compromise.”

Another Labour councillor, Daniel Yates, said that he was assured that the application improved the open space outside the town hall and provided an alternative function space.

He said: “It turns that space into something that’s a little less unused, unloved and neglected – the way it ought to be for a principal square outside the town hall.”

Green councillor Sue Shanks backed the application but was against an early evening closing time. She said: “They’re only doing a couple of events. For an evening event in the summer, it is light quite late. It’s a city. People are outside all over the place so I don’t support the condition.”

Green councillor Leo Littman, who chairs the Planning Committee, said that he remembered the remains of the original town hall which stood on the same site but caught fire in 1966.

He said: “I am probably the only person present who remembers the burnt Victorian brickwork of the previous Hove Town Hall when I was a small child.

“When this was built, it has never quite done what it was supposed to do, and this is hopefully a way of doing something with it.”

Councillor Shanks voted against the 9pm closure time, which passed by six votes to one. The committee then unanimously approved the amended planning application.