The Missing Playground - update

10 years ago council officers won their fight with the developers to ensure a playground was built on the then still vacant plot K of the station site which adjoined Stroudley Road. See "Playground for the New England Quarter". The playground was part of the original planning brief so the developers were presumably well aware of their commitment.

Notwithstanding this,10 years later, the playground has never materialised on plot K and in its place stands City View, 103 Stroudley Road. 

The profit on such a building will of course dwarf the cost of a children's playground and perhaps some compensation payment was mutually agreed or a playground installed somewhere else in the neighbourhood. 

The council's Planning Team has commenced a formal enforcement investigation into this situation and Cr. Nick Childs will be putting a formal question to the Planning Committee.

ADDENDUM 18 April 2021 

A small play area does exist a short walk away from City View on the busy A270. 

It is situated in a small area closely bounded on 3 sides by the walls of tall buildings. 

Hove hole

This central circular feature of Hove Recreation Ground dates from its opening in 1891. It once comprised a complete circle of trees which, up to well into the last century, surrounded a bowl-shaped concavity possibly about 15 foot deep. It may have been intended originally as some kind of grotto or fernery.

google earth view 

The circle of trees is now incomplete and, like many other original features of the city's parks & gardens the bowl no longer exists having been filled up sometime in the latter half of the 20th century.

Stanmer Woods Plan

BHCC Parks Projects Team have put out a draft Stanmer Woodland Management Plan for consultation. The plan will strive to bring the woodland in the Stanmer estate back into active economic management with the aim of sustainable production of timber and woodfuel through the application of sound woodland management practices. This plan will also aim to ensure that the nature conservation, landscape and historic features of the woodland are protected and where practical enhanced. Public access provision will be maintained and the woodland will continue to provide a peaceful and pleasant setting for informal recreational activities.

The draft plan sets out how the woodland can be managed over the next 10 years to:

• Maintain and preserve open access.
• Build resilience against Ash Dieback and other diseases and ensure existing woodland cover is maintained.
• Increase biodiversity and protect nationally and locally rare flora and fauna.
• Produce semi commercial timber extraction of coppice products, wood fuel and timber. 

The plan is also supporting the Stanmer Restoration Project HLF application by:

• Protecting historical, archaeological, and environmental elements on the estate.
• Providing related activities such as rural skills, forest schools and wood based produce.
• Increase the city’s offer for volunteering work such as coppicing, pollarding, scrub clearing and general woodland management practices.

The Stanmer Park Restoration project is a joint initiative between Brighton & Hove City Council, Plumpton College and South Downs National Park Authority and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) .

Ancient woodland

Find out more and make comments.

Public information sessions will be held on Thursday February 1 and Saturday 3 February 2018 at Stanmer Tea Rooms from 9am to midday.

The plan can also be viewed in full on request at Hollingdean Depot Learning and Resource Centre (please contact the parks projects team 01273 294737 to arrange) and will be available at the Stanmer Tea rooms sessions.

The consultation closes on 12th February 2018.

The Brighton & Hove Way Association

The Chattri would be at the approximate mid-point of the route.

A new group has been formed in the city with the exciting aim of establishing a waymarked trail around the whole perimeter of the city, a distance of about 17 miles.

Further aims are:

• To assist with the monitoring, upkeep and improvement of the Brighton & Hove Way and any access and alternative routes.
• To promote and encourage the responsible access, use and enjoyment of the Brighton & Hove Way and the wider network of Rights of Way and Access Land.
• To promote and celebrate the cultural, historical, wildlife and landscape features found along the trail and context within the City Downland Estate, The Living Coast UN Biosphere and the South Downs National Park.
• To promote the recreational, social, economic, educational, health & well-being, and sustainability benefits of the Brighton and Hove Way and it's setting.
• To promote access, use and enjoyment of the Brighton & Hove Way by all people, without discrimination, especially encouraging use by those from under-represented groups and marginalised communities.

Volunteers are needed to keep an eye on sections of the trail, checking every 3 months if all is ok. You can find a leaflet describing what is involved here.  If you would like join the Volunteer Path Warden Scheme email brightonandway@gmail.com.

You can follow the progress of the scheme on facebook.

Provisional Saltdean to Stanmer section 

Provisional Stanmer to Portslade section.

Extra funding for City Parks

In the current year BHCC will be diverting almost £102,000 from a general budget underspend to parks and open spaces.

£82,000 will be spent on the play facilities in Victoria Recreation Ground, Hangleton Park, Dyke Road park and replacement or repair to surfacing and new gates at a number of play areas.

A further £20,000 has been allocated for planting in the Green Flag parks Easthill Memorial Garden, Preston Park, The Level, Stoneham Park, Kipling Gardens, St Ann’s Well Gardens and Hove Park, as well as improving bins in the city centre parks and signage in Kipling Gardens.

The council has also increased security in city centre parks where there has been antisocial behaviour, currently targeting Norfolk Square, St Nicholas Rest Garden, Dorset gardens, The Level and Queens Park.

A new Valley Gardens park

Work continues behind the scenes on plans to improve the environment and transport links through the central valley leading to Brighton seafront and city centre.


The Valley Gardens project aims to reduce the impact of traffic between St Peter’s Church and the Royal Pavilion, to better link the green spaces to the city centre.


Features include an improved network of paths for cyclists and pedestrians. General traffic will be placed on the east side of the valley, going in both directions. On the west side will be a quieter route, just carrying buses, taxis and other local traffic headed for the North Laine area.


Most of the £10m cost is being paid for with government money coming via the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership. The money can only be spent on Valley Gardens.


A planning application covering re-landscaping the area is hoped will go to planning committee in November. Subject to approval, work is expected to start next spring.

Stanmer Park Restoration

Saltdean Lido restoration - update

Restoration of Saltdean Lido could be boosted with a commitment of up to £700,000 of council funding which would be used to replace the public library within the building.

A report on the proposal is going to the next meeting of Brighton & Hove City Council’s policy, resources and growth committee meeting on February 9.  It says the money would be secured by borrowing and included in the council budget for 2018/19.

Saltdean Lido Community Interest Company (SLCIC), which was selected by the council and the preferred bidder for the site in 2013, estimates the cost of a full restoration of the Lido complex is now around £12m.

In January 2015 the CIC won a £2.3m grant from the government’s Coastal Communities Fund.  This is being used to restore the main pool and children’s pool, provide water heating and landscape outdoor areas. Around £170,000 that the council secured from the firm which turned Saltdean’s former Grand Ocean Hotel into flats has also gone into the works.

It means the pools are expected to reopen this summer.

A further grant of £576,000 was won by the CIC from the Heritage Lottery Fund in February 2015.  This has been used to work up detailed plans for a £4.2m Lottery bid towards restoring the main Grade 2-star listed building, dating from 1937.  A result is expected in March.

The project would require demolition of an extension housing Saltdean Library. An amount of up to £700,000 would pay for a temporary facility to ensure library services were uninterrupted, as well as an extension providing permanent library facilities.

The committee is also being recommended in the report to grant the CIC a 60 year lease on the entire Lido building and grounds, subject to various conditions being met. Further sources of funding would then need to be found.

The Big Park Conversation results

Queen's Park

The council survey between August 23 and October 28 into the future of Brighton & Hove’s parks brought a record 3,500 responses  from residents – and many generous offers of help.

Patcham Memorial Park

The survey set out to establish what residents’ spending priorities were for parks and open spaces in times of reduced funding. Between 2009 and 2020, the council’s parks service will be losing around one third of its money, down from £4.7m to just £3.4m.

Most popular suggestions were for the council to use more volunteers (403 mentions), create new revenue streams such as cafés, sponsors, events and charges (217 mentions) and to have more wildflower or overgrown areas (211 mentions).

About three quarters of respondents favoured replacing play area equipment with natural play features such as logs, which were cheaper to maintain.


87% of respondents tend to agree or strongly agree that residents should be allowed to cut grass verges using their own tools under certain circumstances.

Hove Park

56.4% of people were interested or fairly interested in volunteering to help maintain parks. Litter collection was the most likely thing people would offer to help with. Weeding or pruning were other possibilities. Over 1,000 people left email addresses because they might be interested in volunteering.

Business sponsorship or advertising in parks should be explored as a way of raising funds, according to 54% of respondents. 67% said options should be explored for getting not-for-profit organisations to maintain parks or raise funds for them.

Horsdean Park

Surrenden park

Preston Park

Results will help inform an open spaces strategy report going to the environment committee on January 17.

The survey was publicised via news outlets, the council website and social media, 10,000 flyers distributed in various ways, 3,000 postcards to random addresses and adverts in community magazines. 36% of people heard of the survey through social media.

‘Elephant Bones’ in Wish Park

A new artistic creation ‘Elephant Bones’, designed to represent an elephant’s rib cage, is now providing seating and shelter for visitors to the Wish Park playground. The design also incorporates short poems about elephants written by local children, which have been burned into the cladding.

According to a local legend, an elephant, part of a travelling circus, sadly died whilst performing in the park and was laid to rest in the grounds.

Park users and members of the local community, including the Friends of Wish Park, were involved in planning and designing the eye catching structure, taking part in workshops run by Richard Wolfströme from Threshold (part of the Love Architecture Festival.)

Designed by Brighton company Chalk Architecture with structural engineering by QED Structures, also based in the city. It was built by R J Dance & A Roberston, local contractors.

The construction includes ‘ribs’  made of ‘glulam’ (glued and laminated) wood a strong, light, durable material, used to build bridges, church domes, and other buildings. The cladding on the back and the bench are partly made from recycled pier decking, and the whole structure is wheelchair and pushchair accessible.

The project has been funded through ‘Section 106’ contributions from the development of the Nuffield Hospital in New Church Road.

Parks and Open Spaces - the Big Conversation

Share your views here by October 28th. :- Future of our parks consultation.

Brighton's brilliant beaches

Brighton Central beach

The city’s beaches have been classified as ‘excellent’ by the Environment Agency, with two of them winning Blue Flags from Keep Britain Tidy.

All four beaches tested by the Environment Agency – Hove, Brighton Central, Brighton Kemptown and Saltdean – passed with flying colours. The results are based on the past four years (2012-2015) water quality test results.

Blue flags were awarded for the city’s two main resort beaches of Hove and Brighton central. They are used to highlight coastal destinations that have achieved the highest quality in water, facilities, safety, environmental education and management.

Saltdean beach has been recognised with a Quality Coast Award for achieving the highest standards of beach management.

Seasonal lifeguards support the regular seafront team and will be patrolling beaches from the Marina to Hove Lagoon.

During an average year Brighton & Hove’s lifeguards carry out more than 100 water rescues, and save many lives. They also administer first aid to around 250 beach goers, give safety advice to around 19,000 people and reunite hundreds of children with their families, proactively working with them to prevent incidents occurring and ensure their visit to the beach is a safe and happy one.

King Alfred decision.

The view looking south-west will be dominated by an 18 storey tower.

Following  a year-long competitive dialogue between two bidders and specialist council officers, overseen by councillors from all parties, Crest Nicholson, in partnership with the Starr Trust, have been selected as the preferred bidders to redevelop Hove’s King Alfred Leisure Centre site.

The decision was made at the Policy and Resources committee meeting on 21 January 2016. Bouygues were the other contenders.

Subject to future design development, public consultation and planning permission, the scheme would include a modern new sports centre costing around £40m. This would be paid for by a development of 560 flats, and around £8m of council money. The flats would be in four main blocks, the highest of which would be 18 storeys, and 20% of them would be affordable

The sports centre would include  a 25m eight-lane competition pool, a smaller teaching pool, and a leisure pool. Movable floors for changing depths in the competition and teaching pools are features included.

The sports hall would have space for eight badminton courts compared to five in the current centre. There will be a 120-station gym, plus 15 spinning bikes.

Also included would be a crèche, gymnastics centre, three-rink indoor bowls, dedicated martial arts dojo, quiet studio, sauna and a café.

View from east of the site before the water-slide was removed.

Horsdean site underway.

Work by Westridge Construction Ltd. started in September and is due for completion next June. It included boring under the A27 to connect the new permanent and existing transit Traveller sites to the wider sewerage network. This phase was due for completion about now, weather permitting.

View from the west

View from the south

View from the east

Access site in Horsdean Rec. for sewer-pipe boring. 

Improved barriers to Horsdean Recreation ground which has frequently had incursions of travellers. 

The project is being funded by a grant from Department of Communities & Local Government (originally £1.73M).

The costs to the city of dealing with unauthorised encampments over the last few years has been many hundreds of thousands of pounds. But that was for many more caravans or motor homes than the expanded Horsedean is designed to cope with. Horsdean will surely be fully-occupied by van-dwellers in all-year-round need. If despoilation of parks and open spaces is to be significantly reduced, new methods will have to be found for dealing with travellers just in search of a cheap holiday. The costs to the city look likely to continue.

See also:- Horsdean traveller site.

Another award for The Level restoration

The Rose Walk

The restoration of The Level in Brighton has been highly commended at the Landscape Institute Awards.

The commendation was made to 'Land Use Consultants' (LUC), the lead landscape architects for the project, which was carried out on behalf of B&H City Council. LUC helped to develop the master plan for The Level and managed the works programme.

Transformation of the popular city centre park, after considerable local opposition,  was completed in 2013. The restoration included a new children’s playground, skate park, sensory garden, tables for board games and ping pong, a pétanque terrain, 'dancing' fountains, and extensive new planting and landscaping.

The restoration of The Level won a Civic Trust Award last year and a BALI National Landscape award earlier this year.

The Children's Playground

The Skate Park

The Petanque court and quiet area.

The Fountains

Public Access at Stanmer

On 12th. February the BHCC Policy and Resources Committee is being recommended to dedicate land at Stanmer under the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act 2000. This land was designated as open access land in 2005, but this latest move will ensure public access is retained in perpetuity. The land affected is 489 acres of council-owned land at Home Farm, and St Mary’s Farm.

The proposal follows the opening up of other council-owned farmland for public access to allow residents and visitors to make the most of the countryside around the city.

275 acres of land at Patcham Court Farm were dedicated as public access land under the CRoW Act, following a decision in 2012, and 37 acres at Ditchling Road are in the process of being formally dedicated as public access land.

St. Luke's Pool opens again

Following last year’s storm damage to the polycarbonate roof and subsequent closure of St Luke’s Pool, Brighton & Hove City Council decided to turn tragedy into triumph by seizing the opportunity to re-glaze the entire roof and remove the suspended ceiling that was above the pool and blocking the view.  A total of £190k council funding was allocated to to restore the facility to its former Victorian glory.

Now this stunning Grade II Listed building’s architecture, which includes a vaulted glass ceiling - and the sky - can be admired while doing laps of the pool. The self-cleaning glass selected for the roof not only enhances the building’s beauty, it has also improved the building’s efficiency by minimising heat loss in winter and reducing solar gain in summer.

To celebrate Freedom Leisure, who operate the pool in partnership with the City Council, has laid on a weekend of activities for the whole family to enjoy.

On Friday November 7 there will be a disco swim session from 18:00-19:00 with music. Entrance costs £3.50 per person. On Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th November from 09:00-18:00 families are invited to swim for just 10p the kind of price likely to have been charged when the building opened in 1903.

The Level best.

Following completion of the £2.3 million restoration project earlier this year the park has now been awarded a prestigious Green Flag, taking its place as one the finest parks and open spaces in the country.

The award brings the number of Green Flags flying in the Brighton and Hove parks to seven - the highest ever awarded in the city.

Easthill Park, Hove Park, Kipling Gardens, Preston Park, St Ann’s Well Gardens and Stoneham Park have also been awarded Green Flags for excellence.

St Ann’s Well Gardens in Hove flies the flag for the 15th year, while Preston Park celebrates a 14th successive year. Easthill Park in Portslade has picked up its 12th award, Hove Park is celebrating a tenth success while Kipling Gardens in Rottingdean has won its seventh award, while Stoneham Recreation Ground in West Hove picked up its fifth award.

All Brighton & Hove’s parks are managed in-house by the city council.

The national awards, handed out by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, recognise and reward the best parks and green spaces across the country. The Green Flags, which will fly in Brighton & Hove Parks, are only given to parks with the highest possible standards which are beautifully maintained with excellent facilities.

The Peacehaven Undercliff

If you are bored with the Blackrock to Saltdean stretch of undercliff the section between Telscombe and Peacehaven offers much of the same but is generally less busy.

It was built by Lewes District Council in the 1980s and has three access points from the cliff-top which are:-

At the west end, a ramp from Malines Av.

The Bastion Steps at Steyning Ave., 0.7 miles further east 

The easterly steps leading to Cliff Ave., a further mile east.

It is thus possible, by including the cliff-top path, to do a 4 mile figure-of eight walk from any of the three access points, all of which are on the no.12 coast road bus route.

Looking towards Brighton at the west end

Looking across Friars Bay at the east end

Between the Saltdean east end and Peacehaven undercliff is a gap of about 1.2 miles of unprotected cliff, and a similar gap exists between the east end of the Peacehaven undercliff and Newhaven West Beach. Presumably these sections will need coastal defence works eventually and it might then be possible to walk the 7.5 miles from Brighton to Newhaven along a continuous undercliff path.

Some luxurious vegetation.

Reminiscences of the Level