WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Brighton already has an environmental crisis with illegal levels of airborne particulate and nitrogen dioxide throughout the city centre. Our city centre streets are sadly among the most polluted in the UK.
The Argus - 29 July 2020
Clock Tower in Brighton has third-highest pollution level in England
Radical, evidence-based solutions are called for with an open, transparent process that properly engages with the city.
The 'Valley Gardens' redevelopment was originally conceived as a way of addressing these concerns; enhancing access to the city centre with a shared ambition to improve the environment and the local economy together. It is a publicly funded project to the tune of around £18m, including around £16m from Central Government.
The outline scheme was widely discussed over many years and had been broadly welcomed by the community as well as elected councillors from all parties. But a significantly changed ‘Phase 3’ for the Old Steine area developed by a closed group of consultants, lobbyists and council officers appeared in late 2018 and was suddenly fast-tracked through Council approval, shattering that consensus.
WITH SO MUCH AGREED, WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS WITH THE CURRENT PLANS?
The lack of proper consultation with residents, businesses, public sector organisations, heritage groups and the public in firstly surveying the use of the area and then development of the current plans.
The lack of environmental impact assessments with regard to widespread concerns for air quality, noise pollution, traffic congestion and displacement.
The loss of the west side two-way bus lane with the Art Deco bus stops was a total shock and was immediately criticised by bus users, bus operators and taxi firms. This compromises the city’s key public transport hub around the Old Steine and spreads out bus stops across the area.
The unexpected proposal to merge public transport with private vehicles means 224 peak-time buses per hour are forced into the general stop-start traffic. This makes no sense when we want to get people out of their cars.
There simply will not be enough road space for our existing bus infrastructure!
The potential marginalisation of Kemptown and the east of the city with the physical divide of 5 lanes of two-way traffic.
Loss of disability provision throughout the area for drop off and pickups.
The continuous bike lane through the area is welcome - but the single proposed route rings the gardens and cuts right through new pedestrianised areas. We all know this doesn’t work and is specifically against latest government guidelines which says - “cycles must be treated as vehicles and must be separated from pedestrians.” Surely we can do better.
Replacing the Aquarium roundabout with a T-junction drives local traffic into residential streets to east and west and could bring the A259 to gridlock.
The new plan proposes to funnel public transport and private vehicles into 5-lanes of two-way traffic directly in front of the residential premises and dividing the city centre in two. Levels of air and noise pollution will inevitably increase. The east side of the Steine, in front of the residences, instead of enhancing pedestrian access will lose three metres of pavement which would prevent the Kemptown Arch concept ever happening.
Replacing the pier roundabout with a T-junction could jam the A259 coast road and will inevitably disperse traffic into the east of the city's residential streets. We’ve seen the havoc caused by the single Covid cycle lane which had to be removed.
Traffic modelling for the scheme was restricted to typical UK urban weekday rush hour times and, quite incredibly, has ignored our unique Brighton-focused weekend patterns. The proposal to make Madeira Drive one-way requires the creation of a remodelled junction at Duke’s Mound - now costed and developed within the Black Rock Project plans, but still not thought through and modelled in its implications for Valley Gardens.
Advocates for the scheme explained that there would be "winners and losers". The winning is identified as a 5% increase in cycling through the area - surely nowhere near what should be achievable with a better thought-out proposal. The losers - those who will particularly suffer the seriously harmful effects of the city's poor road infrastructure include the disabled and less-abled unable to get about and struggling to get pickups and receive home deliveries; city centre businesses struggling to survive, asthma sufferers, elderly and disabled patients hoping to access city centre surgeries; Kemptown and St James's Street residents and businesses are denied suitable loading access and left sitting on ‘the wrong side of town’. But the biggest 'losers' will be our city’s culture, visitor and tourism economy. That means businesses closing, communities battered, people losing their homes and economic deprivation for years to come.