Work on installing new fencing around Pavilion Gardens – and a new toilet block – is expected start next spring.
Part of the gardens will be fenced off temporarily in August for the second Silent Disco night following a successful trial night in September last year.
Meanwhile work is continuing on the design of the permanent fencing around the perimeter of the site, which was granted planning permission last August.
Objections to the plans were lodged by residents and community groups who opposed closing the park at night. Brighton and Hove Museums, which runs the Pavilion and its gardens, amended the plans to take out new gates, meaning the gardens will remain open.
However, the trust says it does rely on hiring out the gardens to raise money to maintain the site.
It says last autumn’s Silent Disco saw hundreds of revellers use the garden respectfully.
This summer, the organisers have applied to Brighton and Hove City Council to run a bar in the gardens, which would sell alcohol fromi 6.30pm to 10pm on Saturday, August 15.
A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove Museums said: “Last year’s Silent Disco was a successful trial—an event with minimal impact on the historic garden, professionally managed, and well attended by a diverse audience who used the garden at night in a positive and respectful way.
“As a charity, Brighton and Hove Museums relies on hiring out parts of the garden to help support our work and maintain the site.
“The area being hired will be securely fenced to control access during the event, while the remainder of the garden will remain open to the public throughout.
“We will have the ice rink returning in October, but currently, no other garden hires are scheduled that would require restricting access to any part of the garden.
“Regarding the garden project, we are progressing through RIBA Stage 4, where the planning-approved designs are being developed in detail to inform final costings.
“This phase is expected to be completed by autumn. Following this, we will tender for a main contractor with a view to starting on-site in spring 2026.
“The toilet block refurbishment is included in this programme.
“However, until a contractor is appointed, we cannot provide exact details on the phasing of the works, though the entire project is anticipated to take approximately 12 months.”
Don’t worry about restricting access, this already happens many times in Brighton’s parks to the detriment of residents. Also think gates should be put back on and more evening events planned.
Residents? You mean druggies and predators?
The piss head community ruin it like they do everything else in the city
Drug addicts, drug dealing scum, drunks, general degenerates, ok in the day a big no no in the darkened hours.
There are some weird comments here already, perhaps from people with fixed opinions.
I was in the Pavilion Gardens last night, watching the sun go down behind the Pavilion, and enjoying the warm evening there. I took some photographs and tourists were doing the same.
There were also groups of young people, sitting quietly on the grass – and you can see how it’s a nice place to meet and sit out of the wind, and without the need to pay to go in a pub.
It will be a terrible shame if this space gets closed off at night. The long-term intention in fencing the gardens is to allow them to run pay per view concerts, but they also wanted gates to keep people out in the evening, claiming anti-social behaviour, when it’s really about cost saving.
I’m pretty sure the issue of whether to have gates will come up again.
There was no sign of any anti social behaviour last night, a Friday evening, but you can see how the Pavilion trust would like to save money on security – and they don’t like having to empty their own litter bins.
With the public toilets closed in the evenings, you can also see why there’s an issue with people taking a pee behind a tree – although I imagine the trees themselves welcome that event, given how brown the unwatered grass is at the moment.
Last night, I also wondered what will happen to the lovely old stone wall that still surrounds the eastern lawns.
It’s perhaps worth remembering that Queen Victoria gave the Pavilion and its gardens to the people of Brighton, and it’s our city centre public park.
Queen Victoria certainly didn’t give the Pavilion and the gardens to Brighton!
The Brighton Corporation (the equivalent of the council at the time) paid her £50k+ for it in 1850.
But there is a huge difference between people like you enjoying the sunset in the evening and those who are in the gardens at 2am in the morning.
There are no plans to change the existing walls.
As someone who has frequently been in the gardens at 2am, I don’t believe the people still sitting there on a summer evening are much different from those there last night, at 9.30pm.
Fraggle.
Davey Scott, I’m not sure what a ‘Fraggle’ is, but I do know that, for those of us who work the nighttime economy, 2am is not that late.
And walking home after work – when there are no longer any regular nighttime buses – is often a reality for some of us.
The Pavilion Gardens, may then provide that direct route, and it’s generally a safe city centre space, because other walkers are doing the same.
Areas you might actually want to avoid at that time, include West Street, and the seafront arches, but it”s all relative. The true drug dealing, will have happened way earlier.
For sure, if you work 9-5, and eat dinner before 7pm, and then go to bed before 10pm, then you will not relate to any of this.
It’s worth noting that several bars/pubs/clubs are open until late nowadays, and we do still have a night time economy, even though that’s now struggling.
Are the original gates going to be returned as these are gift that people maybe talking about;
In 1921, the Indian Gate was donated by the Maharaja of Patiala to Brighton and Hove. This ornate gateway was a gesture of gratitude for how wounded Indian soldiers were treated during World War I when the Pavilion served as an Indian military hospital .
I was in Pavilion Gardens a few nights ago as I am every evening to walk my dog, and there were armed Police arresting a young girl with a knife. There’s loads of anti social behaviour in the Gardens.
I won’t diss what you say, but the recent nearby sexual assault case was in fact in the morning, and in Dorset Gardens. And so it”s not the time of day or the space that actually causes the rape or attempted personal attack.
This is like saying if we close off a road then there won’t be any more road accidents, when in truth the predators – or bad drivers – just move elsewhere.
It is of course weird, why a woman would have a knife in the Pavilion Gardens, or indeed anywhere.
The more you keep walking your dog, the more we ordinary people keep owning this city centre space.
Queen Victoria SOLD the Pavilion and gardens to the Council, and took a lot of the furniture and light fittings and even some wallpaper.
Nothing charitable about her at all.
So the Trust is hiring out public spaces already. This is precisely what we knew that the fencing was all about. The BS about security was just a smokescreen. Soon we will lose the rights of way across the site. Access will only be granted when they haven’t hired it out for corporate events.
I can see how this is going to go….I live near The Level. During the festival, we had the funfair on one side & Revel Puck’s Circus in the other; there was literally no park, for a whole month. And to add insult to injury, there were 4 X 4s, cars & trucks parked on the grass verges on the perimeter of the park; so the only place to walk your dog was on the pavement. I appreciate things are tight, but the whole point of parks was to provide green spaces to people in urban areas, not to provide revenue for the council/ charitable trusts etc 🤔