The Council’s £16 million Black Rock rejuvenation project needs urgent attention to get it back on track after its budget blew out by £3.9 million and councillors, community groups and residents expressed growing concerns about the progress and vision of the project.

This Council received a £12.1 million grant from the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership back in 2017 for Black Rock to fund some basic public regeneration works and bring the public realm back to an acceptable standard which could be accessed by the community. 

The scope of works was to include ground works to prepare the site for future uses and some renovation of the historic buildings such as the Library buildings and a new sea defence wall.  There was also provision for some basic investment to make the area attractive for people to visit with public toilets, a temporary pump track, play area and seafront classroom and a board walk along the beach.

The Black Rock rejuvenation is much needed to bring to life back to this part of the city.  As the Coast to Capital Partnership said five years ago when awarding Brighton and Hove City Council the grant, ‘as a progressive and growing City, Brighton would benefit greatly from the regeneration of this area’. 

Having received the funding, it should have been a priority for the Council to get this work delivered, but like many other projects along the seafront, including Madeira Terraces restoration, the Council has seemed slow and unable to deliver projects it has funding for. 

Last month, five years on from this grant being awarded and with limited progress having been made on the ground, the council announced that it will now require an extra £3.9 million from local taxpayers to undertake it, bringing the total budget to £16 million.

The failure of the Council over so many years to regenerate this space has had a negative impact on the area, with large parts of the site looking like an industrial wasteland. 

A large part of the site has been fenced off for years, attracting some of the worst graffiti in the city and acting as a physical barrier between Brighton Marina and the seafront.  As the area has declined there have been problems with antisocial behaviour and the development of other social issues in the Black Rock area, including the degradation of the city’s historic reading rooms and van dwellers.  Many residents of the neighbouring residential areas at the Marina have felt unsafe walking around the area, particularly after dark.

There is a sense that the council should be doing much more to put in place the infrastructure and connections that will bring people back to the Black Rock and integrate it with the seafront economy.

The Volk’s Electric Railway Association has identified an opportunity to do just this, linking the Black Rock area and the Marina with the City, with a small extension of its line.  The current end of the of the Volk’s Electric railway line, located next to a sewerage plant, is too far from the Black Rock precinct and the Marina to effectively connect with those areas.  The Volk’s Railway reports that as a result, when people riding the Volk’s Electric Railway arrive at the end of the line, there is so little to do and the site is so isolated that patrons get the next train back.

Their proposal is for the line to be extended a couple of hundred meters further east into the Black Rock precinct to connect it more effectively with the Black Rock area and this could be built into the rejuvenation project.  Such an extension would also form a transport link between the Marina and the City which could only benefit tourism industry in Brighton and Hove.

The Conservatives are strong supporters of the historic Volk’s Electrical Railway and recently secured a budget measure to provide £100,000 to support the purchase of a disabled access carriage for the Volk’s Railway Line to make it accessible to everyone. 

Our Conservative Candidate for the Rottingdean Coastal by-election Lynda Hyde has made it a priority to get on top of £16 million Black Rock rejuvenation project to ensure that it delivers for residents and she would like to see the extension of Volk’s Electric Railway to support the restoration of this site.  The dithering and indecision of this Labour/Green administration must be brought to an end.