A petition to save the Floral Clock, in Hove, has attracted enough support to trigger a town hall debate.
Campaigner Laura King organised the petition to save the 72-year-old centrepiece after Brighton and Hove City Council said that it could no longer afford to mend and maintain the clock.
The petition has more than 3,000 signatures, surpassing the threshold of 2,250 for debate.
As a result, Ms King will have three minutes to present the petition at a meeting of the full council, after which councillors will have 15 minutes to discuss the issue.
The petition said: “The floral clock can be restored and Brighton and Hove City Council has plenty of CIL (community infrastructure levy) tax which can be invested in garden infrastructure for the community.
“The clock can also be sponsored for special occasions, as used to be the case.
“Why is this important? The floral clock is a famous city landmark and has appeared on many postcards over the years.
“It would be a crime to get rid of Hove’s once-beautiful floral clock and the community have been given no say in this council decision.”
The clock was installed in the Palmeira Square gardens as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation celebrations in 1953.
When the council announced a consultation into the garden’s future, people were asked to respond to the public consultation, which closed on Sunday 14 September.
The consultation opening statement said: “We know this is a popular feature and we particularly want to hear your thoughts on this part of the garden as we co-create our plans with you.
“While financial constraints mean the council alone could not commit to mending and maintaining a working clock, we want the community who love and use the garden to help us come up with suggestions for what we might do with this part of the garden.
“We’ve secured funding to cover the cost of the re-landscaping and volunteer gardeners from the Friends of Palmeira and Adelaide Residents Association have generously agreed to help the council maintain the new garden.”
More than 1,110 people have responded to the public consultation. The council has not yet made the results public.
The council meeting is due to start at 4.30pm on Monday (13 October) at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast.
I watched the interview Laura did on Latest TV. She repeatedly described the consultation and community groups as “shams” and implied, seemingly at random, that people were “in on a plan” or “not honest”.
…she’s not a great choice of advocate.
Says the paid Council apologist!
…Mike says, using an unoriginal disingenuous ad hominem, failing to address the substance of what I wrote, indicating he has, again, nothing of substance to add. So, back to the adult conversation, with Laura calling everyone who potentially has the ability to help this situation “a sham”, it’s counterintuitive and ultimately going to damage any campaign she is trying to advocate, making her a poor choice.
Benjy Baby – you are guilty as charged ! An agent of the (Labour) Council whose job it is to push bhcc’s rotten agenda .
But I’m happy I got a ‘disingenuous’ – it’s a real badge of honour
Well, as long as you’re happy with your nonsensical ridiculousness, I guess!
I wonder if the Palestinian planting scheme with a replacement sundial to wind up the keepers of the candle vigil was Benjy’s idea?
That is a rather odd thing to say, Elaine.
To reinstate the clock would be anachronistic, just because it was first installed over 70 years ago, doesn’t mean it has a place today. Remodel the gardens with improved, environmentally fitting planting, benches, maybe raised, sensory, fragrant beds. A floral clock would take up too much space and is too old fashioned. I would welcome a Mediterranean style planting.
It is horrifying what has been revealed about this stitch up consultation.
How dare the council assume residents don’t care if they destroy our Floral Clock.
Who do they think they are? Mediterranean garden? My arse.
You touch upon a very real point that people assume a consultation means that they have a full decision about what happens in any given situation, when the reality is that it is often a discussion on the details of how an already-made decision is delivered. For example, in this case, the decision to replace the overgrown has already been made, and the consultation is more about what to put there as a replacement.
And no normal organisation is going to ask for a consultation on every single expenditure, that’s just silly. Although from their perspective, I can understand people’s frustration and why people would look at that and think it is a “stitch up”.
For me it’s more than that Benjamin – this council are making decisions without consulting residents at all, eg the decision that they made to close the only 2 indoor tennis courts in the city and replace them with padel courts. The council is desperately trying to row back from that and are now speaking to residents. Yet the initial press release they put out in June said “This decision has been made by Freedom Leisure in partnership with the council following a detailed review of participation levels, usage data and recent engagement with the LTA on a padel strategy for the city.” Yet the LTA were not told by the council about the removal of the tennis courts and they swiftly wrote to them to make this case clear.
The press release the council put out in July said “It’s game set and match as Padel courts approved!”. Councillors were quoted and it was made out to be a done deal – despite zero consultation. It was only after public outcry that the council paused the plans. The whole thing was handled dreadfully.
I know you do everything you can to defend the Labour council Benjamin, but often the facts speak for themselves and it’s clear that the council has little regard about listening to the opinion of residents, and they are ploughing on with what they want to do regardless.
You make good points, you’re absolutely right that the tennis court episode was a communications failure and I don’t think anyone seriously defends the way that was handled. But that’s an example of process incompetence, not proof of contempt for residents.
The problem is structural: predating our current council, there’s not a clear, consistent community-consultation framework, so little wonder that engagement ends up being ad-hoc and reactive. That’s what leads to these “done deal” moments.
What you are describing is the opposite of democracy Benjamin. Decisions concerning major or historic city landmarks and facilities are not trivial decisions, but decisions which affect all residents and the future legacy of Brighton and Hove.
Probably not too many people would object about a new type of refuse bin being introduced but decisions which materially affect the quality of life in this city by seeking to erase its history or decide that Libraries are no longer important just because Councillors/Council officers no longer read books or use them is wholly unacceptable.
Public servants arrogantly assuming they can ignore ride roughshod over their tax paying masters without valid consultation or consent is a serious problem and having a Labour majority does not dilute their role as public servants.
Democracy doesn’t mean every operational decision is put to a vote. We elect councillors precisely to weigh priorities, budgets and maintenance costs on our behalf. Fletch makes a good point around a lack of a framework on community engagement and consultation. Where things do go wrong is when the council fails to explain why it’s making a decision, leaving people to assume bad faith. But, that’s a communications issue, not a democratic one.
So the council can find £50m to buy homes for homeless people.
The council can find money for numerous pointless vanity projects that no-one wants such as VG.
But cannot find a few grand to repair something that is part of Hove’s heritage.
SHOCKING AND SHAMEFUL.
The logic is that housing will pay for itself through rent. The clock will always be a £20,000 a year expense as it will never generate an income. VG is divisive, but it’s not fair to say no-one wants it.
What about the wasted money on the i360? That was a council decision too the people had no voice yet it was our money.
Again, it’s untrue to say people had no voice – and I think we really should be more accurate about these things, regardless of ones stance.
There actually was consultation and scrutiny on the i360. It went through the full planning process with public consultation in 2006 and again in 2013 when the revised funding deal was debated by councillors. The loan was approved in an open committee meeting, with all papers published. So residents did have have a voice, but like many big projects, not everyone paid attention until it was built.
Good to mention that our current party in charge voted against the revised i360 proposal.
It’s shameful Brighton Council are trying to home the city’s homeless, but wasting money on an outdated “clock” that’s not worked in years is a good use of public money.
Are you ok?
Where’s Palmeria?
very true. Take some of the parking fines to pay for it. Hove must fight for its history.
The lack of democratic accountability is a major flaw with unitary authorities. Far from devolving power and decisions to local residents they concentrate power amongst the few who are usually from the largest previous council. Of course, it works well for the expansionists who then have more of other people’s money to waste on ego trips while ignoring the need to provide basic services.
Not really talking about the floral clock, but there’s definitely a frustration that residents feel distant from decisions; that’s a valid point. But in my opinion, that is less about being a unitary authority and more about how engagement is structured within it. If you look at any Area panel papers, you’ll see the same limited number of residents turn up each time. That’s where I would start.
Perhaps Laura King and her gang can consult with the residents group who are willing to help with maintenance and see where that leads us? Perhaps some of the 3000 signatories could help out.
I agree! She did call those groups “a sham”, “in on a plan” and “not honest” on Latest TV though, so I wonder if she really has the preserving the Floral Clock’s interest at heart, or just looking for a fight?
Perhaps if BHCC were not quietly squandering £63.7million trying to impose an unwanted digital system on residents who want staff back in their offices providing proper customer services.
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/0056d2a9-25ce-4af2-8522-82a7564a1007?origin=SearchResults&p=3
Plus another £1.3million on nine separate contracts for ‘digital bootcamps’ to train staff on these digital systems to design residents out, they might have more money to spend on the parks and gardens Brighton and Hove was once famed for.
Irrelevant. That comes from a separate capital budget.
Public money is public money and this is a huge chunk of public money being wasted on unwanted digital discrimination for many, without them even knowing about it until they are victims of the outcome. A friend’s adult daughter has severe autism and is no longer able to interact with council services to enable her independent living since council offices closed. This will make her a greater burden to the state as she gets older and how will she cope when her mother is no longer around? An 84 year old neighbour can no longer visit anyone to discuss her Housing Benefit so has ended up with six months of arrears and threats of eviction. Meantime her landline has also been cut off and she is not computer literate. Such stories will number in their thousands across the city.
Yet the council finds the upkeep of the Floral Clock to be the problem…?
Tbh I’d rather my money was spent on a system that stopped people moaning about nothing being able to speak to someone at the council. I.e pretending the bins got missed, when in actual fact they didn’t put them out. Or that the grass verge 1 meter away from their lawn hasn’t been moad.
Why should my money be used for call centre staff to have to respond to 10% of the population that cannot just get a grip and do anything for themselves, while spouting ‘whats this country coming to’
Elaine from her comments seems exactly the boomer Karen caricature that I mean. Hopefully she isn’t like that in real life but sadly I think she is.
Right you are, Davebot.
Again, that’s still wildly irrelevant to this article, Elaine. Additionally, whataboutism is a fallacious argument at best.
This another one of those moments in time.
People like me wonder why anyone would want to reinstate a mechanical clock that has not worked for some time, in an age where we all carry mobile phones rather than a wrist watch.
The discussion is either about nostalgia or else it’s about misplaced spending.
Part of the nostalgia is also for a ‘floral clock’ which originally had seasonal flowers planted around it, and these were changed three times a year by the busy parks department. I personally don’t want to see a return to ‘pretty’ flower beds, endlessly replanted, as was the gardening fashion of the 1950s and 1960s.
That said, I can see that many people do have an emotional attachment to that clock, if maybe as a symbol of former times, and of an ‘old England’ which has mostly now passed. The floral clock’s demise then becomes a strong point of division and anger – between those who are naturally conservative, and those who have happily moved on.
One thing we may all have to accept however, is that there is no spare money in the public purse. £20,000 spent on restoring the floral clock – or on maintaining it each year – would mean yet more money spent with questionable benefit, and that same money could be spent instead on keeping a library open, or helping a disabled person live with dignity.
I personally would spend that cash on painting the seafront railings, because their lack of maintenance is what continually bugs me.
It’s in this context that some would rather make this a discussion about the ‘lack of consultation’ – as if the council deliberately go behind people’s backs. There are then several things to say:
1) Councils of any political colour would be having to make the same difficult economic decisions.
2) Consultation itself actually costs a lot of money, and that administrative money would be better spent employing a worker with a paint brush.
3) We elect councillors and employ council workers to act on our behalf, and we would be wasting so much more time and money if they had to consult everyone on every decision. We can voice our anger at the next election.
4) It does however seem true that the whole way we finance local government, needs a major re-think. For example, ring-fenced budgets seem to result in huge amounts being spaffed on the unnecessary stuff, or on major makeovers, while the basic day-to-day maintenance of the city infrastructure seldom happens.
The floral clock is an anacranism and well past it ‘sell by date’.
I for one, who lives close to the square, would rather a piece of appropriate sculpture to take it’s place – maybe that includes a sundial!