A Brighton community leader wants to know why the council’s cabinet is due to approve the outdoor events programme a week before a long-promised public meeting on the subject.
Diane Messias, founder of the Kemptown Residents Association Facebook Group, said that Brighton and Hove City Council’s approach showed a contempt for the community.
Miss Messias said that she had been fighting to persuade someone at the council, and particularly from Pride, to listen for the past eight to nine years.
Finally, a public meeting for Kemp Town residents is due to be held at St Mary’s Church, in St James’s Street, on Friday 22 November.
But before that, the council’s cabinet is being asked to approve the annual open spaces events programme for next year at a meeting tomorrow (Thursday 14 November).
A senior councillor said that the cabinet was taking a strategic decision, with many key details to be agreed between now and when the events take place.
Miss Messias said: “These events are a done deal, without any input from we residents. We’re sidelined and ignored and the ‘feedback’ meeting next week is purely for show.”
She has contacted council leader Bella Sankey, outdoor events director Ian Baird and Pride’s director of event management Jayne Babb to complain.
She said that it was wrong that the cabinet should approve scores of outdoor events next year a week before a public meeting with Kemp Town residents.
In an email, Miss Messias said: “The events are being presented to the council for approval without any reference to residents’ experience and/or complaints apart from a small petition (presented to full council by Derek Wright in October).
“This is the contempt for the people who live in what has now become Brighton’s theme park on the part of the council.”
She has written to her MP, Chris Ward, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Local Government Minister Jim McMahon about the problems caused by the many events in Kemp Town.
In her email to MPs, she said that over the past ten years residents had been subjected to “ear-splitting decibels” over successive weekends in July and August.
The noise, from sound checks to the events themselves, disturbed residents during events such as the Pride Village Street Party and the On The Beach festival.
She said: “The street party also severely restricts the civil rights of residents in the ‘exclusion zone’.
“(The zone is) prohibiting residents from free access to their homes without a wristband (a breach of the European Human Rights Convention), inviting guests to their homes without paying at least £15 per person to the Street Party organisers and from bringing perfectly legal items such as alcohol, bicycles, dogs, suitcases and backpacks larger than A4 size, into the area.
“Bags are searched, and banned items confiscated.”
The council’s acting cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism, Mitchie Alexander, said: “A range of possible options for the future of the street party are currently being discussed with several local organisations and agencies, including Sussex Police.
“We will then outline various options which will be shared with residents and local businesses.
“It is certainly not a done deal and we will, as always, take all residents’ feedback into account. Safety is our guiding principle.
“The report going to cabinet is seeking approval for our strategic approach to securing and delivering future events in the city.
“We felt this would be useful information and context to bring to the planned meeting with Kemp Town residents so took the decision to slightly delay this meeting.
“We will keep listening to residents as plans for 2025 are finalised and approved and look forward to meeting Kemp Town residents shortly.”
The cabinet meeting is due to start at 2pm tomorrow (Thursday 14 November) at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
The public meeting with the council’s events team is due to start at 4pm on Friday 22 November at St Mary’s Church, in St James’s Street.
It is the way of the Labour Party.
“Listening Labour” haha
Move
You should. Brighton to too inclusive and community minded for entitled people like yourself. London suited you better.
She’s clearly forgotten why the Kemp Town Party was brought in to begin with.
Thousands of people started congregating in Kemp Town after Pride and the numbers became unmanageable and dangerous so it was licenced and controlled.
If she has her way and it becomes ‘deregulated’ the party will happen anyway but it will be uncontrolled and will go on all night.
Interesting, because she has been told that directly before. She even left notes on Facebook of that particular discussion.
Her presentation had always been hostile, sarcastic, and microaggressive in my experience of Diane, avoid engaging with the council in any constructive way, which is a shame because there are two good points that residents of Kemptown had:
1) Ensuring they residents have access to their homes during the street party.
2) Ensuring security was adequate and trained approximately, especially in wake of some people’s experiences shared.
Probably because this topic has been discussed for an entire year already, with multiple engagement and feedback venues.
Kemptown residents association is a Facebook page set up and in my opinion, not a constituted or community group of any kind.
Therefore I struggle with the term ‘community leader’.
Better to say local resident who speaks in a personal capacity. I’m not sure how one can say they speak on behalf of a Facebook page. Odd!
Thank you. I was thinking the same thing.
How does a Facebook page constitute a community leader!
I agree, Diane is certainly a loud voice in her ecosystem, where any discourse she is losing is quickly gagged, but doesn’t interact with any elements really outside that.
I am pretty sure I’ve seen her being called to constitute before from a variety of people, instead choosing to prefer to be an unfocused rant, the page generally being an echo for whatever Brooker-Lewis has posted.
Which genuinely is a shame as a wasted opportunity to be an effective voice for Kemptown.
Although some of the verbal takedowns from LRM of her were certainly entertaining to read over the years. I seem to recall there was some suggestion she was giving Gary Farmer more space then others on her page during the by-elections, although admittedly she did then correct this. I do see those two as a package deal after that though.
Benjamin calls out someones behavior as a loud voice in an ecosystem without realizing his mundane, dull, uninformed posts that plague nearly every comments section on this site mirrors the same behaviour. Have a day off boring us, Benny
Please refer to the multiple previous rebuttals from various people you’ve failed to address regarding this, Leigh.
It is a Facebook page. Keep up.
No-one is questioning the existence of the Facebook page, Jon, keep up.
Since our Council Leader is a trained human rights lawyer, she should know that under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we, the occupants of this city, are not subservient to her Will or that of her council. In fact she, in taking up her position, has agreed to serve we, the people. All employees and Councillors of the City Council are currently in breach of both this obligation and the Nolan Principles of Public Office. They are also guilty of trying to serve two masters in the case where they have pledged allegiance to both their national political party and to the taxpaying occupants and voters of this city.
Very odd to call her a community leader. She runs a Facebook group called Kemptown Residents Association but kicks out anyone who disagrees with her. It’s not a residents association in any way. Headline should just read “person complains”.
Starting a Facebook Group with 800 members does not in any sense make you a “community leader”.
The “local democracy” reporting just gets worse. An array of unrepresentative views, cranks and failed council candidates trying to outdo each other for attention.
Getting a sense of council or Labour lackeys knocking someone public-spirited enough to speak up about something that riles a lot of us who live in the Kemp Town area.
Don’t be silly, people can have different opinions without being a secret Council lackey Charlet.
Have you ever heard of the phrase “You get more bees with honey”?
Personally, I don’t have any problem with some of the points raised, it’s more the method I find to be ineffective. For someone who used to work for the BBC, I would expect better.
The meeting hasn’t even taking place yet and she’s complaining ahout it.
I surmise that whatever happens at the meeting she’ll still complain.
Do events cause disruption then yes but our city would be a lot poorer (financially and culturally) without them.
For me, I find there are reasonable points in there when you dig deeply enough. Residents should have full access to their properties, and security should be professional. There are discussions that should be had to mitigate disruption as much a possible.
It’s just the way she goes about her complaints are just poor. Confrontational, adversarial, microaggression is never going to be persuasive.
She’ll be reading this and scoffing. What a shame.
Not true Chris. The money we make from events is tiny, while a small circle of promotors makes millions. The beach is rented out for a puny £60k while the revenue for the On the Beach event is around £2.4m….and they don’t bother with site restitution. Local businesses have complained and been ignored. The myth is that we make money from events. The reality is that many events only really make money for a few private individuals.
Lev B
These events brings in money to the city even if the council doesn’t see much of it.
Attendees of events don’t just come in and out. Many will stay over for a night – possibly even a long weekend – or spend money in bars and shops.
A large slew of the independent shops that make Brighton an atttactive shopping destination wouldn’t survive if it was just locals shopping there.
Indeed, the figures reflect that. Something in the range of £13,400 per 100 people who stay overnight per night compared to £340 who visit for the day.
100% agree with this, the council has redefined the meaning of “consultation”, it is more the officers who hold power and share information they feel is “relevant” with councillors. That on top of party faithful councillors who haven’t a clue what’s going on and just rode the red wave in the local election as the city rejected the Greens and the Tories.
It’s arguable that Kemptown was not part of the “red wave” as it had a by-election following the absentee councillors.
And we now have two absentee councillors….
No, those left already.
Diane has received an extraordinary amount of personal abuse for daring to challenge the council and some of the comments on this thread give a small flavour of that. I am a non-active site member and it has been interesting to read what her and other members have been posting to keep us informed about council shenanigans. Most of the abuse seems to have come from people involved in local bars, events or PR, but a lot seems to have come from some fairly creepy anonymous accounts. This stopped a little after the last MP was fired (who was also pretty offensive himself…one member apparently had to get a ‘cease and desist’ to stop the abuse). It is interesting how anyone who dares to criticise this council is subject to personal attacks…I wonder why? Meanwhile the Facebook group has calmed down a lot now and thanks to Diane’s tough line on abuse, the group is generally very constructive. Robert Browns posts are great in keeping us informed as well. Keep going Diane and everyone involved! You are clearly doing something right….
MPs technically can’t be “fired,” – LRM being subject to very suspicious timing of a complaint from several years ago meaning he wasn’t able to stand as a Labour MP, though it’s true that the previous MP had some well-publicised disagreements with Diane. While I wouldn’t personally echo his approach, it’s worth recognising that those tensions contributed to the polarised environment we’ve seen on some local pages. Anonymous accounts are certainly a growing issue, but as an admin, Diane can identify users.
That said, I believe Diane’s tendency to adopt an adversarial approach often undermines her effectiveness. Criticism is vital in holding the council to account, but when it leans into confrontation for its own sake, it risks alienating people and being counterproductive to Kemptown’s progress. Her endorsements of Robert and Gary during the elections also raised questions about impartiality, though I respect her for correcting this when flagged.
I am in complete agreement that abuse should not be tolerated. Disagreement and amicable discourse are important, and this can be done without name-calling. Likewise, abusing administrative powers to gag opinions that are different to your own, or that you don’t like, is also unfair.
Last month or so, I’ve just noticed it’s mainly just crossposting of the local news pages, the discourse is mainly on those websites and pages.
Her latest grievance, the third one I’ve personally witnessed – was were she took on her usual adversial approach regarding events, and received equally back and ironically got offended by.
All in all, it got out of hand quite quickly, and no-one should ever be the recipient of charged language. Again, I’m reminded why I believe her to be so ineffective surrounding in this singular topic she is clearly passionate about.
Sensationalism might work for the BBC, but for Kemptown, a cooler head, and smarter tounge is more important.
I’ve now had first-hand experience of how rude, spiteful, and condescending Diane can be to others who don’t share her views and agenda. The Facebook group she runs is mainly just posts and rants by herself – virtually no-one else posts unless it’s from people wishing to comment on her own posts. She speaks of people being respectful, yet, if your views don’t fit her narrative, you are slated and ridiculed, so I am hardly surprised she is kicking up a fuss on anything she disapproves.