The streets of Brighton may not be paved with gold but a deep clean down one side of West Street burnished the route to and from the seafront.
Labour councillor Tim Rowkins said that a stretch of pavement had been partly transformed as workers scrubbed off the muck and dirt.
It now had a “rich golden brown” pavement, he said, while the other side was still thick with grime and chewing gum.
The overnight work had taken place as part of a pilot project, Councillor Rowkins told colleagues in a meeting at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (19 March).
And from May, contractors will extend the programme of overnight jet-washing and deep cleaning in the centre of Brighton in addition to the work of the council’s daytime team of street cleaners.
The decision to employ the contractors was taken by Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet after what was described in a report as “the Station to the Sea – Test and Learn Pilot”.
The deep cleaning will be funded with a £250,000-a-year budget for three years, with an initial focus on the “gateway” area from the railway station to the seafront.
The area includes the North Laine, The Lanes, Western Road and St James’s Street and could expand to other streets where needed.
The council is also “procuring” specialist equipment to remove graffiti and could set up its own commercial graffiti removal service to generate income.
Councillor Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for environmental services and net zero, said that many people had called on the council to clean up the look and feel of the place.
Brighton and Hove welcomes about 12 million visitors a year but there have been complaints that too little was done to keep the busy streets clean.
In the past year, 40 new rubbish bins have been sited in the area, along with 10 cigarette bins, and with 57 new communal bins to come. Abandoned bikes have been removed and about a thousand stickers have been cleaned off hard surfaces.
Councillor Rowkins said: “A lot of these 12 million visitors turn up in the city on the train and often, if they’ve come from further inland, the first thing they want to do is go down to the beach.
“In my view, that initial experience of leaving the train station and walking down to the seafront, down Queen’s Road and West Street, has not always been a particularly pleasant one.
“I personally have a very ambitious vision of what that journey could be like at some point in the future but what we really wanted to do was to make a short-term highly visible impact.”
Labour councillor Birgit Miller, the councils’ cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism, said that the hotels and hospitality businesses were excited by the improved cleaning plans.
The night-time cleaning budget is due to be reviewed after three years.
Get the unemployed to do it, or stop their benefits!
But then they wouldn’t be unemployed, lol. Still, there’s something there, could be a good use of Community Payback, considering they have hours to fulfil.
“There’s something there” isn’t really a plan though, is it? Just saying “get the unemployed to do it” without thinking through how it actually works isn’t a solution. Most unemployed people aren’t sitting around waiting for random tasks—they’re job hunting, training, or dealing with real barriers.
And comparing that to Community Payback misses the point completely—that’s for people serving sentences, not a model for employment policy. If you’re going to suggest something like this, you need more than a half-joke and no alternative.
James! You’ve made a slightly less obvious AI-generated comment; I’m proud of you. However, it’s making yet another classic AI mistake, unfortunately. 5.3 is particularly bad at this. Again, I must remind you that you should not rely on AI to create comments for you, as it makes mistakes very often. This is another example, the tenth one I’ve called out? I’m losing count.
So, going to ignore the first part about unemployment, as that’s pure AI slop.
Your AI did not recognise that I am not agreeing with Peter, and it also hallucinates that I’m comparing it to Community Payback. Your AI claims I’m not providing an alternative, completely missing the point that I am suggesting Community Payback is a viable resource. Considering they have community hours to fulfil as part of their sentencing, it makes perfect sense to use them for acute deep cleans. Contributing to the city after taking away from it, very karmic, right? And as one-offs, it is more than reasonable for them to support a short-term impact.
Benjamin This obsession with calling everything “AI” instead of actually engaging with the point is getting a bit tired. You’ve written a lot there, but it mostly boils down to defending a throwaway idea after the fact.
No one’s confused about what Community Payback is—the issue is acting like it’s some scalable fix rather than a limited, supervised sentencing tool. “Karmic” or not, it’s not a serious solution to wider problems, just a convenient one to mention.
No, it’s not at all. Another mistake of your AI, which is now retreating to high concepts, something that wasn’t being discussed here, in an attempt to save face. AI is notorious for being confidently wrong.
For example, it’s now misrepresenting what I just said, and also getting what I said fundamentally wrong on two parts. Firstly, your AI is avoiding how it was called out on hallucinating a comparison that wasn’t reflected in what I wrote. Secondly, it’s now hallucinating that CP was claimed as a “scalable fix” despite the exact opposite being expressed. Thirdly, it’s trying to make an argument that doesn’t exist in this conversation.
So, for the 12th time, James. Stop relying on AI to make arguments for you; it makes mistakes, and often. This is yet another three examples of it doing just that. And, as I’ve said already, claiming something is tired is just evidence of you not learning from these exchanges, and continuing to do it. Let’s not forget, you replied to me.
You’re better than this, James. I’d rather read your thoughts, not what a computer thinks. Then maybe we will have something of substance to talk about.
Another waste of money
Why is it a waste of money? It’s good to see my council tax money being spent on what it should be spent on rather than on all the takers in the city who don’t even contribute into it!
We have a new tagger in Hove, they/him/her/X has sprung up so many private buildings where people live, defaced. We need a small astroid to send these taggers. Even a lovely mural on our estate has been defaced by these taggers.
So…. This is the council do what they should do regularly but don’t so it’s newsworthy!
‘station to the sea’
What goes around comes around.
Anyone remember ‘Ocean Boulevard’ – a Labour spin from a few years back which promised much the same but never managed more than the glow-in-the dark cones at the foot of West Street before being consigned to the history bin as soon as sufficient glowing press pieces had been achieved.
Cowboys Ted. Bunch of cowboys.
Meanwhile down on fragle rock , ……. It’s the drug addicts and drug dealers that should be removed from these streets, so called city of Wanktuary .
Could you move to Clacton?
How about trusty prisoners from say Ford.
‘Window dressing’. Shops closed, graffiti, drunks and homeless all along Western Road but the Council thinks a bit of jet washing will fix things. We had a Council with a far reaching vision a while ago but the ‘no point having principles if you don’t have power’ brigade undermined it and were prepared to sacrifice actual power. Now we have ambitious, talentless people who have no principles, no vision. Hopeless.
Which council had a far reaching vision and was better than this one? Surely you don’t mean that awful green majority council which constantly had the binmen on strike, and were responsible for the financial and ecological disaster known as the i360?
More public toilets might help with the stench of urine in the summer months , another Brighton speciality .
Where would these public toilets be placed on Queens road, west street that you talk about so lovingly
Benjamin
This is getting a bit ridiculous now. Instead of actually engaging with what’s being said, you keep defaulting to “AI” as a way to dismiss it, then building your whole response around that assumption.
You’re claiming hallucinations and invented arguments, but in reality you’re just reframing the discussion to avoid addressing the substance. Not everything you disagree with is “AI-generated,” and repeating it 12 times doesn’t make it true.
If you want a proper discussion, drop the meta commentary and stick to the actual points—otherwise it just comes across as deflection rather than debate.
I am engaging with the point; AI just shifted it.
I didn’t present Community Payback as a broader solution; I suggested it as a limited, short-term use for visible deep cleaning. Your AI reframed that as if I was proposing it as a scalable fix to wider problems, which I didn’t. So the issue isn’t disagreement, it’s that your AI is arguing against a version of my point that hasn’t been made.
The irony is that your AI is arguing deflection, to deflect from its own deflection. So, for the 15th time now, AI is a useful tool, but it can and often makes mistakes. This is yet another example of it doing it. You can do better, James.
Saying stupid things seems to be a speciality of yours, are you sure you’re not an AI too?
Baseless homenium attacks don’t add anything, I’m afraid.
What is ‘homenium’ ?
Hominem spelt incorrectly, haha.
Get people on benefits to do it. Get them to earn their jd trainer and tracksuits
There’s no way that people on UPW would be allowed to use the equipment involved in things like this.
You’re probably right, but it doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult barrier to pass. A little bit of training beforehand for compliance. And can also be supportive in other ways. A bin bag and a litter picker can be used by anyone, right‽
Litter picking is a very common UPW activity, but the article seems to be concerning more ‘heavy-duty’ cleaning.
Benjamin
your original point about Community Payback being a **limited, short-term help** was fair.
The problem is you’ve spent more time arguing about “AI” than actually reinforcing that point. That’s why people are pushing back — it comes across as deflection.
If you strip it back, your idea is simple:
Community Payback could help with **one-off, supervised cleanups**, not replace council services.
That’s a reasonable suggestion. It just gets lost when the focus shifts away from the actual argument.
Just your AI was pushing back, let’s be accurate. Anyway, we got there eventually! Long-term, personally, I’m hoping that it is a case it will be easier to maintain once a deep clean has been achieved. How that strategy looks will be up for debate.
Impressive how every topic somehow becomes about you. Anyway, back to the actual point…
Usually, that’s because you start it, unprompted, with “Benjamin”. I’d recommend not doing that if you don’t want to talk about me and my thoughts. Seems to be the most prudent solution, one would assume. 🙃
That’s a bit ironic—your comment literally put yourself at the centre of it. Maybe just stick to the topic next time?
Proving my point, James. Proving my point, lol.
Proving my point” on repeat isn’t the same as having one, lol.
Stick to feeding the pigeons
Oh…sweet irony. Anyway, moving on from the weird pigeon obsession.