The Brighton Half Marathon can go ahead on Sunday (2 March) and the A259 Grand Junction Road should reopen to traffic the next morning, Brighton and Hove City Council said today (Wednesday 26 February).
The half marathon is the biggest annual fundraiser for the Sussex Beacon charity, with thousands of runners and supporters expected on the seafront.
But the seafront road has been closed for five days and concerns have been growing about the duration of the closure and whether the race would have to be cancelled.
The council said: “We can now share more information about plans to get the A259 King’s Road reopened.
“A temporary road closure was put in place outside the Royal Albion Hotel last Friday after a structural engineer’s report said the hotel structure and attached scaffolding was at risk of ‘catastrophic failure’.
“Britannia Hotels and their contractors have arranged for specialist equipment to arrive on site today and tomorrow with work taking place on Friday and Saturday to remove the scaffolding, demolish the part of the building at risk of collapse and to make the area safe.
“The road will remain closed on Sunday for the Brighton Half Marathon and to allow preparations for the road to be reopened.
“The southern part of the A259 will then reopen on Monday morning with a contraflow, allowing traffic to pass in both directions.
“We’ll then work with Britannia Hotels and their contractors next week on getting the rest of the road reopened as soon as possible.”
An internal council email said: “A fire at the Royal Albion Hotel in July 2023 caused substantial damage to the building. At the time, the parts of the building that were at risk of collapse were demolished.
“The company dealing with the remediation works at the Royal Albion and associated structures contacted the council last week to inform us that there is a structural issue at the former Lion Mansion Hotel (the central part of the previous building).
“The assessment by their structural engineer is that the remaining freestanding one-storey and three-storey sections of the Lion Mansion Hotel building, mainly to the rear of the site, remain in an unsafe state and are considered to be dangerous.
“Such a collapse could be catastrophic and could be triggered by a small localised failure.
“In addition, part of the structure has scaffolding in place which fronts the A259. However, it appears that the scaffolding is not designed to prevent the building from failing.
“As a result, if the building were to fail the scaffolding would also fail. This could result in a 25-metre scaffolding structure falling in one piece.
“As a result, we were advised by the company that a 25-metre buffer was required to protect the public while risk assessments were carried out for the demolition of the sections of the buildings and while the demolition is taking place.
“We have been in close contact with the owner’s appointed contractors and, at a meeting yesterday, we were advised that works to reduce the flank wall and scaffolding on the A259 side of the building will commence on Friday once the machinery arrives on site tomorrow.
“They have advised that the works should be completed on Saturday which will allow the westbound carriageway to be used for the half marathon this Sunday and the westbound carriageway can open once the half marathon has finished.
“Discussions are continuing regarding the programme for the remaining at-risk parts of the building as well as the removal of contaminated debris on site and how quickly the eastbound carriageway can be opened.
“A multi-disciplined council team have been meeting daily to discuss the evolving situation and we have been contacting various partners such as the Health and Safety Executive to expediate matters while also mindful of the listed building status and the site’s location in a conservation area.”
Councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport, parking and the public realm, said: “We’ve been pushing Britannia and their contractors to get this work done and make the area safe quickly.
“I’m satisfied the work taking place will mean the Brighton Half Marathon can go ahead as planned and that we can get the A259 open to traffic again early on Monday morning.
“Public safety is our number one priority but I understand this has caused a lot of disruption and again I’d like to thank people for their patience.
“I’d also like to thank the organisers of the half marathon and Sussex Beacon who have been very understanding while we’ve worked to make sure this fantastic event that raises money for an amazing charity can go ahead as planned.”
The hotel suffered catastrophic damage in a fire on Saturday 15 July 2023. It was believed to have been started by a carelessly discarded cigarette.
If the unsafe building section gets demolished in two days, and then the Half Marathon goes ahead unaffected on Sunday, plus the seafront road gets opened again for Monday, that will be something of a miracle.
We can only hope that this sequence of events actually happens.
The question still remains how we got ourselves in this situation in the first place?
Plus the experience has shown how disruptive these road closures are, both for commuter and other essential traffic, and how the disruption affects bus services.
The knock-on effect for businesses is as yet unquantified, but I can tell you that city centre shops and restaurants and bars are all reporting poor trade this week. People just stay away when they realise that travelling across the city will take extra time and cause frustration.
Some of us believe the removal of the Palace Pier roundabout – as part of the ongoing VG3 refurbishment – will result in similar city centre travel issues, not least because the new junction to replace the old roundabout is an incompetent design.
Disgusting how they care more about the marathon being impacted by this closure than the city’s economy, visitors and residents trying to go about their daily business. They’ve had nearly 2 years to restore this grade 2 star listed hotel. How the heck can any of it still be dangerous, even if it isn’t finished? And why is the original building not refurbished and reopen by now at the very least? What kind of dereliction of duty is this on the part of the council and hotel owners? Please get on with restoring it as quickly as possible.
The article literally explains your question.
Development of the site is 100% down to Britannia as the owners.
All the council can do is push Britannia to get on with developing its plans and submit a formal application – which thety are doing. But they can’t make Britannia do that.
And remeber that the maraton is also vital to the economy of the city – it brings in runners and visitors who stay in hotels and eat and drink and shop here too.