Police are trying to persuade a teenager to come down from the roof of Hove Town Hall this evening (Tuesday 5 September).
Sussex Police have cordoned off Church Road between Tisbury Road and Norton Road.
Two police officers are on the roof but appear to be at a distance from the youngster.
At least three police cars and a minibus as well as three crews from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service are on the scene along with two fire or incident control units.
And ambulance crews also arrived and were standing by.
A drone was spotted being flown over the roof at one point.
And a fire service aerial ladder was deployed with a view to illuminating the roof shortly before 9.30pm – after darkness fell – but the incident ended within moments.
The youth had initially appeared to be showing off to friends and crowds gathered with some passersby shouting at the youngster.
Emergency crews were called shortly after 7pm.
The youth appeared to have been arrested and was taken away in a police car shortly after 9.30pm.
Traffic including buses have been diverted.
Meanwhile, a coastguard helicopter was carrying out a separate sea search a short distance away.
More as we get it.
The police told me that the teenager is female. The Council has had the scaffolding in place for months with scant work being done to the problematic glass. At first I feared the climber was suicidal but this is not the case – but it has cost thousands of pounds in agencies’ efforts.
Eyewitness here. The person on the roof is definitely male and was shouting abuse at anyone who asked them to come down. Agree that the council should have never left the scaffolding up that long and in such a state that made it so easy to access (which it was). Despite that the teenager deserves consequences for wasting so much emergency service resource.
I live across from the town hall and all the scaffolding does is attract teenagers that climb up and shout abuse or drop cans from above, even had some hanging from the top railing. Made several complaints and called police but nothing seems to be done about it except for adding “alarms” that don’t even seem te be working? I wonder how long the scaffolding needs to be kept for, haven’t seen anyone do any actual work?
I was half expecting this to be one of the graffiti vandals defacing the city. Surprised it wasn’t.