Large development ‘will never be built at Saltdean Lido’

A large development of homes will never be built on the site of Saltdean Lido, according to Brighton and Hove City Council leader Mary Mears.

Cllr Mears has warned the leaseholder to forget about building a block of flats on the site following last week’s decision by English Heritage to upgrade the site to Grade II* listed.

A local campaign was launched by fears that the council, who is the sites freeholder, had been considering the idea of turning the historic lido into a block of more than 100 homes.

However, Cllr Mears said: “I want both the leaseholder and residents to forget about the idea of putting significant amounts of housing on this site.  It is a complete non-starter.  The council will never allow it.

“Instead, I am going to call a meeting shortly between the Save Saltdean Lido campaign, the Saltdean Community Association who sublet it, plus experts and lawyers from the council.  The aim would be to see how we can protect the Lido as a listed building and make it a permanently viable attraction.

“The current leaseholder is in dispute with the council over a number of issues.  He needs to understand we will not back any major development plans and he needs to negotiate about the Lido’s future accordingly.”

She added: “The reason we backed that star listing application was to give the building extra protection from the kinds of proposals we were hearing.  As a starred building, English Heritage would also have to approve any development.”

Cllr Mears

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Posted by Joseph Lewis on March 23, 2011. Filed under Council News,Featured,Saltdean. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry