The council’s cabinet plans to hold an urgent meeting soon to make a key decision about the future of the Madeira Terraces restoration project.
Members are expected to appoint a building contractor to start the £12 million first phase of the project although the date of the cabinet meeting has yet to be announced.
The urgency comes because the next scheduled meeting of the Brighton and Hove City Council cabinet is not until Thursday 26 September.
Labour councillor Jacob Taylor said that an urgent meeting was required in answer to questions at the first meeting of the council’s new Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee yesterday (Tuesday 23 July).
Green and Conservative councillors have criticised delays in restoring the grade II* listed structure, consisting of Victorian terraces and arches, and a contractor was due to appointed by the end of May.
But last month the council said that the tendering process for the contract to restore 28 of the arches was taking longer than expected.
Yesterday, at Hove Town Hall, Conservative councillor Ivan Lyons asked for an update on plans for the Madeira Terraces – as did Labour councillor John Hewitt.
Councillor Taylor said: “We are very keen to get on with that project. Everyone on this committee – and all parties in the chamber have obviously been involved with the project over the years – are keen to get it going.
“And we are determined as a Labour council to start refurbishing those arches and that’s what we intend to do.”
Councillor Lyons also asked about the council’s vision for the seafront and for insights into plans for funding future projects, with a suggestion that the council could issue bonds to the public.
Councillor Taylor said: “One of the real areas of focus has got to be east of the Palace Pier to the Marina – and we’ve got most of the pieces in train to start getting there.
“If you go west of the Palace Pier to the West Pier, that area is now looking pretty good. The arches are good. The commercial properties that are there and the businesses that are there are pretty good. It’s vibrant. It looks nice.
“When you go east of the Palace Pier to the Marina you’ve obviously got a pretty mixed bag at the moment.
“Black Rock’s not yet up and running – but you’ve got Sea Lanes and some of those temporary BoxPark-style things that are on the seafront.
“We’ve got a chance over the next five years to a decade to turn that area of town into a real destination.”
Councillor Taylor said that as well as the restored arches, there was the boardwalk to Black Rock and whatever ended up being built there.
He added: “You could have a huge stretch there that is rejuvenated and that is a destination … that’s part of the vision certainly.
“We’ve already made very good progress on things in the west of the city. What is now being called Hove Beach Park is going to be fantastic – and I think all parties support that (and) we’ve obviously made a decision on the King Alfred.
“The vision for all of us has got to be over the coming years and decade to really make Brighton and Hove have the best seafront in the whole of the south of England.”
Funding would continue to prove a challenge, he said, although the council had a decent record of raising money from a mix of sources.
He cited government grants, lottery and heritage funds, the council’s own resources, borrowing and “commercialisation” – for example, letting refurbished arches.
Councillor Taylor said that he would look into the feasibility of issuing bonds – once commonly used by councils but relatively rare in the past 50 years.
The council is a member of the UK Municipal Bonds Agency – as are Adur, Worthing, West Sussex and more than 50 other councils. But bonds have not been a widely used means of raising money since the agency’s inception 10 years ago.
In the same period, a number of commercial ventures by several councils, funded by more conventional means, have proved costly.
From various councils losing money on shopping centres to the Thurrock solar farm scheme to the Brighton i360, there have been some spectacular financial failures.
Labour has been criticised for going slowly on the Madeira Terraces project since winning the local elections last year but Councillor Taylor has previously indicated a preference for doing it right rather than doing it fast.
The prospect of an urgent cabinet meeting to appoint a contractor to start work before the autumn and winter storms suggests that he is also mindful of the costs that can come from too much delay.
The first arches in line for refurbishment are the 28 immediately to the west of Concorde 2.
Time to face the facts – BHCC couldn’t organise a p1ss up in a brewery. Inept and profligate, and acting against the best interests of the residents….then you have VG3
VG3! The best example of incompetence and arrogance since VG2….they get worse with every project and initiative.
I love your ability to link everything to VG3.
Thanks Benjy Boy! Probably better to stick with trite and pointless daily meanderings.
Oh, don’t put yourself down like that, you do on occasion provide some interesting thoughts; just the VG3 thing is getting a bit repetitive when that’s all you appear to be talking about, especially on adjacent articles.
❤️ vg3
Note
First few trial bays have to be done before the rest of the 28 can be restored
If there was award for faffing then B&H would win hands down. Millions have been raised over the years. One wonders where that’s gone? Another West Pier Distrust in the making. #followthemoney
Money is either within the councils reserves or in the reserves of e.g. national lottery if they’ve earmarked funding,
Always funny when the Green councillors start criticising about the slow progress of the project.
They controlled the council for a few years and didn’t do anything about it then?
Except that they got the funding in place, the planning process started and had the tender out until Labour paused and delayed it. Last time Labour were in power they spent 5 years wringing their hands and applying for funding they knew weren’t eligible for.
“If you go west of the Palace Pier to the West Pier, that area is now looking pretty good..”
Are they delusional?
The sea front west of the pier looks like down town Cairo.
It doesn’t look that good!!
No one will ever forgive the council if these arches collapse. I hope they prove everyone wrong and competently get the restoration started.
As soon as we hear the word Council, we know how this will go.
Charitably give jobs to those that are not sufficiently mentally equipped to be successful in an unaided and unprotected career, and put them in charge of running the city.
There really does need to be a better way of dealing with local domestic needs, because giving the task to the most incompetent people in our society has never worked yet, and is never likely to.