Battle stations down at the sea

John Parry - The Argus Friday, 19 April, 2002

IT'S pistols at dawn on Brighton seafront.

The cause of this ultimate confrontation? The tortured remains of the once glorious West Pier, filled with the acrid stench of droppings from a myriad of starlings that doss down in its shelter every night.

The protagonists? On the south side of the Kings Road are the St Modwen developers, displaying their weapons in the West Pier office. On the north side, in the Granville Hotel, is the more lightly armed but equally aggressive Save Our Seafront Campaign. Their positions are well rehearsed and well reported.

Briefly, St Modwen is prepared to permanently destroy clear seafront views in pursuit of its holy grail, its so-called "enabling development" on which it claims the commercial future of the West Pier depends.

The SOS campaign insists there is no need to build any development above promenade level, compromising the sea view. It claims similar commercial space can be created below on the foreshore.

My heart and my brain tell me the SOS campaign has to be right.

We must resist the bullying, bamboozling tactics of St Modwen with its "last chance saloon" rhetoric. There is still time for it to adjust its scheme once more and bring its proposals into line with the aspirations of most of us in the city. My private soundings convince me a majority of people now believe destruction of the seafront vista is not only unacceptable but unnecessary.