The first phase of the restoration of Madeira Terrace could now see just 28 arches restored to keep soaring costs down.
Members of the Madeira Terrace Advisory Panel were told last week that inflation meant the costs of the proposed first phase is likely to exceed the original budget.
Repairs to the Royal Crescent Steps have definitely been ruled out for the first phase, but the new lift has been prioritised over keeping the number of arches restored at 40.
The scheme has gone out to final tender this week, with bidders asked to quote both for restoring 40 arches and for 28. If the former quotes come back too high, the council will go with the latter option.
One of the members of the panel, fundraiser Jax Atkins, said: “This is yet another massive disappointment from the council. It’s been going on for years and gradually the length of the refurbishment is decreasing. It is just not on.
“So much money has been wasted so far and people want to see results from the money donated and from their council tax payments.
“We all well know that the lifts need to be rethought from an aesthetic and financial view. Upgrading the existing Madeira Lift has to be a priority.
“The work on the other lift (lifts?) needs to be put on the back-burner. Money will be saved doing this and then the council can renovate a larger amount of arches and as no-one likes the new lift designs, there will be happiness all round.”
The new lift, which will be open around the clock, is set to be built just to the west of the Madeira Lift, which has been out of action since 2021.
The walkway surrounding it has also now been fenced off because of fresh structural concerns. It was not scheduled to be repaired in the first phase.
A council spokesman said: “Significant increases in construction and material costs have affected all areas of construction in the past year.
“In preparation for issuing our invitation to tender to contractors for this important project we have reviewed project finances to ensure that a high-quality renovation will be delivered within the budget, which was set before the pandemic and prior to widespread cost inflation.
“As a result of the current cost pressures, we have discussed with the Madeira Terrace Restoration Advisory Panel the need to have an option to reduce the number of arches included in Phase 1 of the project if the costs from bidding contractors come in too high.
“Potentially there might be an option to reduce from 40 to 28 arches.
“The alternative would be that, if costs come in too high and we do not have that flexibility, then we would not be able to renovate any of the arches.”
Phase 1 of the project would still include:
• renovating the deck above the arches, with additional seating and greening, infrastructure for canopies/shades and for pop-up events
• re-facing and planting to conserve the Green Wall
• reinstatement of verges at Madeira Drive level
• new stairs adjacent to Concorde 2, and
• the new lift – which the council says is a key component for the scheme as it will ensure access for all.
The invitation to tender is expected to be issued to contractors in October, with a view to the chosen contractor starting on site in spring 2024.
What a load of blarney – the Advisory Panel were not discussed with! We were TOLD!!
“we have discussed with the Madeira Terrace Restoration Advisory Panel the need to have an option to reduce the number of arches included in Phase 1 of the project if the costs from bidding contractors come in too high.
So you’re saying you’re not very effective in your role as an Advisory Panel?
Only advise not give advice
It he advisory panel was just part of their due process and had no ability to do anything. Even the councillors on the project ignored numerous requests to actually attend our meetings.
So respectfully, Jax, and the Advisory Panel, were ineffective. Potentially not by personal incompetence, but due to as you say, being used as a tick box exercise as described. Of course, the natural follow-on question from that is why is Jax and the Panel there if they can be replaced by a piece of paper?
And you accused me of being disingenuous?
That’s not what disingenuous means, but nice try with the random ad hominem. Feel free to provide something substantiative to the conversation next time.
So do you want to tell us what you think it means or do you want to look it up?
I guess this explains how you’ve used it until now..
How disingenuous of you.
The council should have been committed to the whole phase. Maybe the people who voted Labour will think before the next election. Money will be found if another strike looms, and then the whole thing will be cancelled, along with Hove seafront, Black Rock and the restoration of the historic seafront lamps.
They are committed to the whole phase, but dont have funds yet for all the 4/5 phases . Kingsway to the sea and Black Rock , both Government funded, have had their plans curtailed to keep in budget . Two of the Historic seafront lamps have already been restored , council funded.
Many voted labour so stop the wholesale closures of public toilet the greens had green lighted.
I disagree with you PG. There are plenty of reasons why it needed to spread out further over a longer period of time. It’s more financially sound and a responsible consideration. If this was a Green Council still, we would have seen an intrepid continuation of the project in full, and be in an even deeper financial hole than the one Greens currently left our council in.
*cough* suggest that you look at the Labour council’s budget deficit for this and next year. The financial hole gets deeper, but it’s not the Greens in charge.
…that’s how budgets work, they tend of have long reaching effects that surpass administrations, you know this very well John, you aren’t stupid. Don’t act like you are.
As a former member of the Advisory Panel I know what a pointless smokescreen for incompetence it became. No ‘advice’ was taken, we were simply told what we’d already seen in the press. The new lift is not ‘restoration’. The existing lift needs to be repaired first, the staircases reopened and the arches restored. Nobody I know outside of the council likes the hideous new gun tower lift shafts and they are jeopardising the whole project. Luckily Council Leader Bella Sankey has promised the terrace will be completed by 2027 or was this a whopping lie?
Come tell us in 2027.
plenty of money to spend on the A23 cycle lanes and VG3 !
Different ringfenced funding pots. Can’t be interchanged.
thats government funded the MT P1 is council funded.
“no-one likes the new lift designs” – this is not true. I think the design is great and clearly it’s significantly cheaper than fixing the Victorian lift. The lifts are vital for disabled access to the beach. Does Jax understand that if they focus on the Victorian lift that leaves even less money for the arches?
I agree access is vital but far better plans were ignored in favour of the towers that I’m pleased you like. I think the four in a row will make our seafront look like a high security prison.
I agree lots of us think the new lift looks great and is much needed to allow access to all
Is there suddenly an increase in disabled people in the Kemptown area that access to the beach is urgent? The lift debate should not delay the immediate commencement of the 40 arches refurbishment!
West Pier mark II
The money that the council wasted on pointless cycle lanes up to the pier that caused a mile long tailback to the Marina, only to be removed a week later, could have been used for this. And the other cycle Lane from pier to Hove which is massively underutilised.
No that was government Active Travel covid measures which cant fund Council services
28 sounds more than enough but then, like most local people, I’m never in that area so I won’t see them anyway
Why doesn’t the council just sell it on to a private company to do something worthwhile with. They clearly are completely incompetent of doing anything worthwhile with the city yet alone the arches. Really don’t understand why they are holding on to it, they’ve sold most of the council assests off so why not the arches too. I personally think its a waste of money to renivate them to what they were way back in the victorian days in the same material that they were built in. Someone should take the project over and bring them up to 21st centuary usage and make it more than just a walkway to stroll and sit on. The way this and past councils have been carrying on with actiually getting on with doing anything with the arches will mea by the time they renivate the first phase of the arches and move on to the second phase, the first phase will be needing renovating again. Everything is a sticking plaster in this city, nothing has longevity but yet there seems to be plenty of money found for people that don’t even pay council tax. I don’t mind distrubuting wealth across the board but when you’re paying £275 a month on council tax with very little of your money being spent making the city look good and the majority of supporting lazy people on benefits, alcoholics, drug addicts etc, it starts to make youn recent it. It’s easy to blame central goverment and to a certain degree they are to blame but local councils have always been famously renowed for over spending on rubbish causes, corruption and run by clueless hippies with out of date ideals!
I think your comment really highlights how poorly laypeople understand how the council runs, how funding streams work, and overall how this is communicated in a way that allows a simple explanation.
Johnny 60, spot on.
As soon as these people make up a council, they seem to lose
all common sense and leave their brains at home. Those that the gods wish destroy, they
first drive mad.
There was a suggestion to do that but it was rejected by the residents and council
Restore what is there, put bars, shops etc under the arch’s to make the area more viable.
Not possible as there are no services, and laying them is too costly making it unviable
This is a long term project. Times are difficult. Everybody knows that. Maybe it all has to take longer. Well, OK.
The Arches ARE the essence of the project and the impressive extent of their very length. It would be pointless to have ‘some’ arches repaired.
It would be good to have them repaired ASAP but let it take as long as it takes and so be it. Cut back or slow other planned but non-essential projects as necessary.
You can’t partially do a job.
The Arches ARE the project. Their length is what makes them so impressive, the reason for caring about them.
You can’t just have ‘some’ Arches. If it has to take longer, so be it. There isn’t a deadline, is there? There wasn’t any rush of concern as they were rusting away for decades.If it takes longer so be it.
Again, do people really care about Brighton. It is what Brighton is about.
This is a major Brighton heritage restoration ‘vision’. “If a job’s worth doing, do it well” … do it properly, seriously, completely, with pride.
From a reading of the Comments above several points seem to arise, such as:
1. Whilst obviously being Internet users the lack of knowledge of the details of BHCC’s workings has to be rather worrying, given that we City taxpayers fund a Council website offering a mountain of information. Possibly the inexcusable clunkiness of the archive of Committee meeting webcasts, where one cannot easily jump straight to hear the debate that took place about a specific issue is discouraging to a visitor not having a couple of hours to patiently view an entire meeting? Hopefully the new Administration will initiate fuller hyperlinking for these webcasts?
2. Without casting aspersions at any member of the Terraces Advisory Panel the experiences spoken of above are actually indicative of a ‘Democratic Deficit’ that has been allowed to fester for far too many years!
Yes, it is very noble of unelected residents to volunteer their time and knowledge to offer their advice and views to our Town Hall officers.
Generally however, the rest of us City taxpayers only hear about such groups by coincidence, if at all! It is extremely unusual for advance notice to be given on the BHCC website of the time and place of such meetings, with an open invitation to attend to observe. Nor does there appear to be a public webcast archive offered by BHCC, presumably because such meetings are not formally filmed by BHCC?
All of which means our neighbours are talking to the Council about our City, but the rest of us have no practical way to challenge whatever’s been said.
And, as can be deduced from what Panel members are saying above, this de facto democratic deficit is made all the more egregious by Council officers applying years of Machiavellian practice to obtain from a group the responses which those officers want!
Most frequently by the manipulation of Minutes of a group meeting – principally by omitting all criticism from the group, even though such ‘criticism’ is helpful and constructive! And at the next meeting any Panellist who points out serious omissions in the Minutes is generally brushed-off with an officer’s response along the lines of: ‘Sorry, but we’re not drafting a Hansard record!’.
3. Which leads to a need to mention that, since a minority Tory Administration was elected in 2007, the work of our Council has been blighted by a Town Hall culture of: ‘Officers rule, OK?’.
At its simplest this leads to officers not wishing to recognise positive proposals from Councillors, and absolutely not from residents/taxpayers!
At its more egregious level, as numerous retired Councillors can attest from past experience, this ‘Officers rule’ culture manifests itself by a two-faced conduct. Officers ‘capture’ Councillors by false flattery, whilst sabotaging the efforts of our Elected Members in a variety of ways, with the intention of causing controversy and/or embarrassment to a targeted political Party.
With the benefit of hindsight, at the first election victory of the Greens in 2011, various outgoing Conservatives warned the incomers not to let themselves also be captured and sabotaged! But the Greens ignored this friendly advice, and happily walked into the trap of being ‘Given enough rope to hang themselves’ – which duly happened, with their successors repeating similar errors, resulting in their massive defeat of May, 2023!
We can but hope that the freshly-elected Labour team understand this history, and indeed will select a new Council CEO to build a decent corporate culture, along the competent and professional lines that Hove and Portslade residents remember from the frugal, but efficient and humane, Hove Borough Council!
4. So, aspects of the above especially relevant to our Madeira Tereaces?
Well, ever since it became a Listed Structure, our Council(s) have had a legal duty to maintain the Terraces in good condition, which is apparently a Duty enforceable in law, when someone can find the time and money to take the Council to Court?
But even twenty years ago those walking underneath could look up to the underside of the deck, to see patches of water infiltration over many areas. Today made even worse by there not having been any application of waterproofing to the deck, which means that, over the past 20 years (and probably longer?) more degradation of the structure, with much more expensive repairs now needed. So why have our officers been so negligent for so long?
And the inexcusably ugly, and bulky, lift-towers? Most likely due to stressed-out Councillors informally permitting officers to issue a flawed Design Brief to the architects?
We have a clear legal duty to retain the Madeira Lift – so refurbishing the exterior, and installing modern equipment, can hardly cost more than building the proposed tower (with its own new equipment inside!), surely? Even if Concorde 2 needs to negotiate with BHCC for a separate public entrance to the lift at ground level?
And as to those voices looking to commercialise the Terraces? Well the structure (when well-maintained) is part of what makes Brighton Brighton, in addition to being a legally-protected monument to the excellent works of our Victorian predecessors – so one which must never be trashed or trivialised! Or is nobody noticing the growth of generally trashy and unworthy structures at the beach side of Madeira Drive?
On a practical note the deck of the Terraces is readily capable of being operated, with deckchairs for hire and public toilets nearby etc, as the very agreeable place to relax and watch the world go by that it once was.
And at ground level, with the lawns cared-for, the shelter beneath the deck has long been appreciated by those attending various events on Madeira Drive, or simply as another nice place to sit for a while on quieter days.
In travel-agent jargon the Madeira Terraces are simply an integral part of our City’s ‘offer’ to visitors, as is the regenerated beach area between the two piers thus, like all public infrastructure, BHCC must arrange the finances so that all of our City’s infrastructure receives good maintenance, surely?
But, and as many of the above Commenters are likely to recognise, since at least 1997 far too much taxpayers money has been spent on new vanity projects, rather than on looking after what we already own!
Plenty of work there for Members of the fresh Labour Administration to get their teeth into?
Is there suddenly an increase in disabled people in the Kemptown area that access to the beach is urgent? The lift debate should not delay the immediate commencement of the 40 arches refurbishment!
No, but the current financials might!