Plans for new fencing around Pavilion Gardens have been approved by councillors despite fears about the height of the railings.
The revamp of the Grade II* listed gardens also includes re-lancscaping and remodelling of the toilet block.
Now the plans are approved, detailed landscape designs will be worked up so that the works can be tendered, with work expected to start in spring 2026, lasting 12 months.
Two members of the public spoke against the height of the railings and removing the gates during Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee meeting today.
The Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust’s application was originally due to go before councillors in May.
However, opposition to closing the gardens at night resulted in the case being deferred to August.
New drawings were submitted in June to show wooden gates remaining at the India gate and King William IV gate, and wider entrances in New Road.
North Laine Community Association representative Peter Wingate-Saul spoke against the railings describing the proposals as looking like a “stockade”.
The association asked for an amendment to reduce the railings height from a maximum of two metres (seven feet) to one-and-a-half metres, or five feet railings.
He said: “Seven-foot railings will not deter determined intruders without other necessary measures, but that height would mean everyone would be looking into the garden through a stockade of railings.
“We request this application be deferred to allow for the height of the railings to be amended.”
Mr Wingate-Saul said the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust may want to close the gardens and conditions should be added to the application detailing when this is appropriate.
John Tyler, a volunteer gardener at the Royal Pavilion Gardens spoke in favour of the railings and securing the gardens at night.
He highlighted problems with crime, citing one incident of rape this year, as well as litter, needles from drug use, binfires and plant vandalism blighting the gardens on a regular basis.
Mr Tyler said: “I urge you to go ahead with erecting fences to keep the people, the Pavilion and the gardens safe at night in line with the security experts’ recommendations.
“This will especially protect women, children and the vulnerable.”
Conservative councillor Carol Theobald backed Mr Tyler. She said most of the London parks are closed at night and she is concerned about crime levels in the city centre.
Councillor Theobald said: “It’s a waste of time having railings going all the way around if you’re going to keep it open 24 hours. It needs to be protected.
“I think if you vote for this and something happens in there, a rape, or something happens to the Royal Pavilion, I shall blame anybody that votes for this today.”
Labour councillor Paul Nann challenged Councillor Theobald’s comments about councillors being responsible for future crime in the gardens.
He said: “I don’t think the gardens being open is the cause of the crime, the crime happens there because the gardens are open.
“If you close the gardens then that crime might happen somewhere else, and I could say you’re responsible for that crime outside the gardens? It’s a sketchy argument at best and doesn’t make sense.”
Both Councillor Theobald and Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Mark Earthey were concerned about the loss of 17 trees but recognised the removal is part of restoring the gardens to their original layout.
Modern trees and hedges would be removed under the plans which are intended to restore the original views created by the Royal Pavilion’s architect, John Nash.
Councillor Earthey said: “Would those trees have been there when the palace was originally built? Would the prince have been looking out over them or not?
“Are we trying to preserve the gardens as they were originally as they were contructed 200 years ago, or with the values of 21st Century Brighton?”
As replacement trees are being planted, Councllor Earthey said it was “good enough for him”.
Seven councillors voted for the application with Councillor Theobald voting against.
Green councillor Sue Shanks left the chamber for the application as she is a trustee of the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust.
The Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust secured £4.4 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to revamp the Pavilion Gardens and public toilets.
The approved plans include remodelling the existing toilet block into a Changing Places accessible toilet and separate gender-neutral cubicles facing the listed gardens.
The new building would include a kiosk, an accessible toilet, in addition to the Changing Places toilet, a baby change cubicle and three individual toilets.
All sounds great… apart from the toilets. What would really keep women, children and the vulnerable safe is keeping the toilets single sex. More accessibility is needed everywhere, but unisex toilets are a magnet for predators. Why do we keep putting women and children at risk to keep a small, vocal minority of fetishists who can’t grasp biological sex happy?
They’re cheaper to run when they’re unisex. You end up with multiple fully-enclosed cubicles (safe because they’re single-occupant) and one being vandalised doesn’t take the lot out of service. Enclosed cubicles tend to be more sturdy. If there’s a single open sink area then the visibility and higher footfall (men and women) makes them less likely to be vandalised. That higher traffic also makes it more likely a witness will come past any other crime that does occur.
In the rush to blame ideology, never forget the maxim ‘cui bono?’
Wonderful news keep the pesants at bay…. 2027 we can charge them an entrance fee as welll… Splendid all-round..
Removal of trees is unnecessary & unisex toilets is not decent
I understand the Pavillion Gardens are to become a private playground for counsellors, their families and friends. The name being muted is Sankey Gardens. 😳
Well done John Tyler for speaking up. Up with the railings and the gates. It would be great to have the gardens closed on a summer evening and for people to pay to listen to some decent music.
A city of Sanctuary for everyone except the tax paying residents who have to put up with vandalism, anti-social behaviour closed public facilities and fences where none were previously needed.
When La Lucas signalled Brighton as the city of sanctuary, every ner do well and mountebank made a b line for the place. After forty years we moved out of what had become a total dung heap.
This is another major change for the city centre that is slipping through quietly and, sadly, this one stinks.
We’ve been told the gardens are ‘at risk’ – when all they actually said there was no management plan in place.
The ‘at risk’ narrative has been added to by the new lie that the gardens are currently a place of high crime. (And some people have swallowed that idea in the same way that some people are convinced that immigrants all sponge off the state.)
It makes sense, right? Until that is you look at the actual figures.
In this article, the alarmist narrative is added to by a ‘volunteer gardener’ who suggests the place of now full of discarded needles and there are bin fires. For sure, discarded instant BBQs cause bin fires, but I have yet to see that as a regular issue in the Pavilion Gardens.
The picture painted might suit those sofa surfers on social media, but it’s far from the experience of those of us who actually visit the Pavilion Gardens on a regular basis.
I see that another trigger word, ‘rape’ ,has also been used here – as if the gardens caused the rape, and as if those terrible but rare crimes won’t just happen elsewhere once one city centre area is closed.
The Pavilion and its grounds themselves are not actually ‘at risk’. This change means the city centre area will now be surrounded by an ugly high fence – and people have been very quiet about what happens to the old stone wall which is beautiful, and which currently wraps around the Eastern Lawns. It will be a tragedy is that old wall is just knocked down – but check out the plans under the VG3 project.
And now we hear they will cut down mature trees, just to recreate the original Nash vision for the garden. I think Nash himself would be horrified. As a gardener, I can tell you that it’s the changes that nature brings over time, that outweigh any original design.
Planting new or replacement trees means you are starting again, and the re-set Nash design will take decades to reach a visual maturity. And why mothball the gardens to a certain age? The Royal Pavilion itself is no longer a palace, as Nash intended, but a tourist/visitor attraction, an historical relic, and a wedding venue.
It’s also scary for us residents that the Pavilion Gardens toilets are being refurbished, and yet with less capacity than before. The argument is not really whether they are ‘gender neutral’ or not, but how long the queues are.
These loos are the last of our city centre public toilets, and it makes more sense for them to face outside the new fence, rather than to the inside. The practical truth is that the city continues to expand, but the loo facilities keep shrinking.
For sure, we have yet to see how this new fence will be used.
I for one will be very angry if this fence means the gardens are closed off at night, or frequently closed in the daytime for pay-per-view concerts for wealthy people. For most of us, day or night, these publicly-owned gardens are also a thoroughfare when crossing the city on foot.
I’m feeling the disappointment and some frustration this evening.
A sad state of our society when malevolent scum dictate were and when we can use our open spaces. Perhaps we should be less tolerant towards those who threaten us. Less a City of sanctuary and more ‘piss off’ if you can’t behave approach.