Conservation wasn’t a dirty word in Brighton and Hove during much of the last century. It wasn’t a word most people used at all.

A century ago there were few planning controls and developers could do more or less what they wanted provided they had the land and the money.

The classic case was Peacehaven, almost next to Brighton, which was developed during the 1920s with ugly bungalows and old railway carriages on land which had been beautiful countryside.

But in the resort things were little better. There were constant calls for the Clock Tower to be demolished and some councillors even proposed that the Royal Pavilion should be pulled down.

Sir Herbert Carden, who did a lot to save downland, had no qualms about suggesting that the northern side of King’s Road should be demolished and replaced with Art Deco flats.

In Hove, then run separately, there were proposals to demolish Brunswick Square which led to the formation of the Regency Society in 1945.

Campaigners won the day on that proposal but ten years ago they lost the fight to save the buildings in St Ann’s Well Gardens from the axe.

More demolition took place in the 1960s. In Brighton Churchill Square was built on the site of charming streets which undoubtedly would be highly sought after today had they survived.

The bland King’sWest centre was built on Brighton seafront. The Regency Gothic National School in Church Street was shamefully demolished.

Several fie buildings were lost along Brighton seafront including the Bedford Hotel to fire in 1964. Meanwhile in Hove featureless flats began to replace handsome Victorian houses inKingsway and Grand Avenue.

The appointment of planning officers made a great difference to the way in which people viewed conservation.

Ken Fines in Brighton and Michael Ray in Hove were officers of the highest calibre. Before they came demolition was rife. After their appointment hardly a historic building was lost.

Fines famously persuaded Brighton Council to save the North Laine district from being ruined by a road on stilts and instead a conservation area was created.

But the council under his direction created many other conservation areas and persuaded the Government to list hundreds of houses as historic buildings.

Michael Ray in Hove helped save a crumbling section of Brunswick Terrace from falling into disuse and did much the same with Victoria Terrace. Moving outside the town centre, he set up plans to preserve West Blatchington windmill, the British Engineerium and Foredown Tower.

Both men were strongly against development on the Downs which had been going on for years. They also persuaded councillors that good public transport could save the resort from being over run by cars.

They did not win every planning skirmish but by the time they retired after long stints in their posts, both men could justly claim to have made a real difference to the appearance of the city.

There are still battles to be fought, particularly over the density of development, but conservation is now high on the agenda of all those who deal with planning proposals.