Rising costs of King Alfred scheme prompt questions

The rising cost of plans to build a new King Alfred Leisure Centre and the amount spent so far have prompted a series of questions.

Campaigner Laura King asked whether Brighton and Hove City Council was considering an “urgent and independent review” of the £65 million budget now the council has a new permanent chief financial officer Elizabeth Griffiths.

Ms King noted how the budget was increased from £45 million to £65 million during the September 2025 cabinet meeting under the interim chief financial officer John Hooton.

At a full council meeting on Thursday (23 July), Ms King said: “How can the council demonstrate that borrowing the necessary funds represents best value for public benefit, is affordable to repay and will not become another financial disaster even larger than the i360?”

The Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor said that all projects were subject to business cases and reviews, not least because of changes in the construction and borrowing environment. He said that the business case was being reviewed.

Councillor Taylor said: “Building big projects, building big infrastructure costs money. We acknowledge that. It is a large amount of money, of course it is.

“When we compare it to the i360, I think it’s a very interesting comparison, because on this side of the chamber, we take very seriously our responsibilities on public money and when we’re investing it.

“And the things that we’re thinking about investing money in are big housing schemes to tackle the housing crisis and leisure facilities that the public want and need, not big towers in the sky that go nowhere.”

Last year, when the cabinet approved the budget increase to £65 million, it was described as a “more realistic view”, taking into account the cost of an “undercroft car park”, better facilities, a new entrance plaza and inflation in the construction sector.

The council expects to borrow between £38.6 million and £47.7 million from the Public Works Loan Board. The cost of repaying the debt over 50 years would be between £1.95 million and £2.4 million a year.

The council expects to receive between £17.3 million and £26.4 million from selling 60 per cent of the existing site for housing.

And the aim is for 40 per cent of the homes to be classed as “affordable”, with the help of funding from the government agency Homes England. The council hopes that it would also fund demolition work at the site.

Green councillor Ollie Sykes asked last week how much had been spent on the regeneration project so far, up to the end of June.

Labour councillor Alan Robins, the council’s cabinet member for sports, recreation and libraries, said that £6.12 million had been spent so far from a budget drawdown of £8.5 million.

The money had paid for the professional team creating the designs up to Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 4a standard and submitting the planning application.

The council had also spent money on asbestos removal, biodiversity planting on the Hove Lawns event space and relocating UK Power Network cables, he said.

The planning application is due to go before the council’s Planning Committee on Wednesday 29 July.

Should councillors be “minded to grant” – and the application is not called in by the Secretary of State – demolition is due to start early next year, with the aim of completing the scheme by autumn 2029.