A nursery owner denied a lease extension by Brighton and Hove City Council has vowed to stay put.
Nick Childs, who owns Childcare 360, the company behind the Gingerbread Nursery, said that he would not give up his lease on the cabin building in Saltdean Park.
He spoke out after the council, which owns the land, turned down his request for an extended lease.
He said that he was taken aback when negotiations collapsed after his and the council’s agents agreed terms last October.
The council had a sudden change of mind, he said.
Mr Childs is now considering seeking a judicial review of the decision to turn down his request, with a report to the council’s Policy and Resources Committee suggesting that Childcare 360 would surrender its lease in September 2022.
Mr Childs said: “They’re hoping to drive us out and we’ll surrender the lease.
“The reason for that may be to return the park to open public space or there’s some alternative plan for that plot that’s been there for 40-odd years.
“Whatever they think or hope, it won’t be happening. We’ve got 12 years remaining and we’ll keep it that way.
“We’ll either patch the building up and get going with what we have – that’s not the best outcome for Saltdean community that’s for sure.
“If we can’t, we’ll just leave it there to rot. It’s not a huge expense and the assumption we’ll surrender the lease is not correct.
“The Saltdean community is being let down here.”
Mr Childs has planning permission to put a new wooden building on the site to replace the 40-year-old “terrapin” building and wanted an extra 12 years added to his existing lease.
The “terrapin” was previously used as a doctor’s surgery before it was moved into the park to operate first as a youth club then a nursery.
He said: “You would think they would want something that’s for the benefit of the community, where someone like us is coming along and saying ‘we’ll take down that eyesore that’s been there for 40-years’ and invest our money.
“The council immediately take control of what’s on their land. It’s a gift to the community effectively.
“We have to abide by the terms of our lease and hope they don’t evict us before we at least pay back on our investment.
“You would think that would be a no-brain decision. It’s good for everyone. There’s no reason for anyone to get in the way of that.”
Mr Childs said that he felt that he had support from Saltdean parents after receiving a positive response to his planning application for a new wooden building on the site.
When the Planning Committee passed the application in June last year, Gingerbread received 126 letters of support, with 68 people opposing the plans.
In a straw poll conducted on the Saltdean chat Facebook group, 268 people backed Gingerbread with just six against the proposed lease extension.
During the council committee debate last Thursday (8 October), Saltdean Residents’ Association representative Cathy Gallagher said that the Saltdean Oval was “under attack” from commercialisation and “creeping tarmac”.
Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh, who represents Rottingdean Coastal ward, which includes the western side of Saltdean, said that the covid-19 lockdown showed that the area needed its open green spaces.
However, Mr Childs said that there was a demand for early years childcare, with 40 families on the waiting list.
He was turning people away, he said, as were other nurseries in the area because they could not provide the full day, two to five days a week that many working families need.
He said: “We know that we have families calling us now. There are families in one of our other settings who have been on the waiting list for two years and would love to have their childcare in Saltdean.”
At the “virtual” Policy and Resources Committee meeting, councillors voted unanimously to refuse Mr Childs’s request to extend the lease.
