Visitor numbers are almost back to pre-pandemic levels, cabinet members were told as they backed a 25-year lease to enable the return of the Brighton Wheel.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet is granting the lease to a new company being set up by the existing tenant on the Dalton’s Bastion site, just east of the Palace Pier.
Although not named in the public papers, the new company is expected to be linked to the Brighton Zip and Dalton’s Bastion operator Madeira Leisure Limited, owned by Jayne and Jeffrey Sanders.
The couple registered Bastion Entertainments Limited with Companies House at the end of last month.
At a meeting at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (17 September), Labour councillor David McGregor, the council’s cabinet member for the economy, culture, heritage and tourism, said that he was “very excited” about the prospect of the wheel.
Councillor McGregor said that the latest visitor figures showed that there were 12.2 million visitors to Brighton and Hove last year, just shy of the pre-covid high of 12.4 million in 2019.
He said: “We’re doing everything we can to create the most exciting seafront offer for tourists and for residents. This could be potentially be the next step in that journey.”
He said that the operator was taking on the costs and commercial risk of the venue.
Labour councillor Theresa Mackey, who represents Kemptown ward, said that she and her colleague, Councillor Gary Wilkinson, welcomed the return of the wheel and the investment in the area.
But, she said, they were concerned about the length of the 25-year lease which would see the wheel in place until 2051.
Councillor Mackey said: “That is a very significant commitment of an important piece of council-owned seafront land.
“And the difficulty is none of us can say with certainty what our seafront will look like in 10, 15 or 25 years’ time.
“We are already beginning to think about its longer-term future. There will undoubtedly be new opportunities, pressures and ideas we cannot anticipate today.”
She urged the cabinet to consider a shorter term initially, with an option to extend the lease.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, said that the returning wheel had been discussed at the new Seafront Development Board and there was strong support from members.
Councillor Taylor said: “One of the things we set out in the (seafront board) prospectus is an acknowledgement or indeed and embracing of the fact the seafront can offer different things across every stretch and offer something for everybody, whether it’s fun tourist-type attactions like the wheel or arts and culure or food and drink or sport, leisure and wellness.
“Once we get all these things in place, we are going to have the greatest seafront in England, if we don’t already.”
When the Brighton Wheel was in place – from 2011 to 2016 – it proved a popular attraction.
But it had been agreed that the wheel would not remain in place at the same time as the i360, owned and operated by Marks Barfield.
After the collapse of the Brighton i360 company, the attraction was bought out of administration by entrepreneur Sarah Willingham’s company Nightcap, with more of a focus on hospitality.
The report to cabinet said that the i360 had become better established and the wheel would complement existing attractions and provide a different visitor experience.
This will do wonders for the trade at the i360. I bet that team is delighted
Can anyone explain council logic to me?
The previous wheel was taken away years ago so that the i360 wouldn’t have to compete with a similar attraction. So why do the council want to reintroduce that competition when the people of Brighton are still owed large sums from the i360. Won’t this make it even harder for the i360 to pay back their loans?
The i360 is already dead on and on artificial life-support, building up even more debts.
Let’s see how long it takes Ms Willingham to admit this and go cap in hand to the council, to subsidise it.
It’s time to switch the life support machine off and admit defeat before the single attraction which can’t be allowed to fail for whatever reason, can do any more financial damage.
Apparently, Ms Willingham is moving out of the area!
But the council have removed over half the visitor parking in this area since 2016 and ramped the prices of the remaining parking through the roof, so where will families park? The coucnil should never have given in to Ms Harris’s hectoring to remove it in the first place. It’s loss did not save the i360 from becoming a white elephant.
The council granted a 25 year lease?
I hope this isn’t all the detail because that’s ridiculous. There could be an option to span that length of time, but surely the terms should be 3 to 5 years max and subject to review and renew on each occasion, with an opt-out if necessary? There is no telling how it will go, so how can you commit to 25 years?
I know the council are stupid, but surely they can’t be this clueless.
As stated in the article, there is a council report with details.
Well, hurrah!
A little ambition, a little fun and another reason to visit our magnificent seafront. Lady Bracknell has been asking for rather more joy in this city, so it would be most churlish not to applaud it when it appears.
And with the operator apparently taking the cost and commercial risk, one hopes this particular wheel may turn rather more happily than certain other celebrated pieces of seafront engineering.
The 25-year lease is, of course, a perfectly reasonable thing for residents to question. Indeed, one of the Council’s own cabinet members did precisely that.
What is rather less joyful is the increasingly familiar habit of treating perfectly reasonable questions from residents as tiresome interruptions, to be dispatched with a reference to a report, a policy or the relevant paperwork.
Reports are terribly useful things. One should read them.
But they are not smelling salts, to be waved beneath the public until everyone recovers from the vulgar impulse to ask a question.
More ambition. More imagination. More wheels turning.
And perhaps just a little less shutting down of those who dare to wonder whether things might be done differently.
Lady Bracknell, from the promenade.