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"What should be done to revive the London Road area? Leave your comments below." Knock it down and start again? Get rid of the street drinkers, skag-heads and overhwhelming number of scabby little chavs and their whores? Not put another cheap and nasty shop there to encourage more cheap and nasty people? Napalm? This place always reminds me of Croydon when I have to drive down there. Do it today and I guarantee you will not see one attractive person. I Guarantee.

I hardly think obliterating the poor is the answer. Will you be putting them up in your (I mansion to keep them off the streets, Sir Cliff? Assuming you live in a mansion and not a poky bedsit somewhere off Seven Dials near your equally vile mates.

"Help revive London Road to its former vibrancy". When was London Road ever vibrant????

Try getting upmarket shops there, not downmarket ones like Aldi. If it's going to remain a supermarket then Waitrose would be the best option or a M&S foodstore. There's no hope with the current bunch of shops along there.

Actually, I remember when Lomdon Road was vibrant. It's been left to wrack and ruin over the last fifteen years or so - and it's bordering on tragic. The boarded up shops along the St Peter's Church stretch of the road are an appalling blemish on the town. But will anything change? I very much doubt it...I, for one, would be thrilled to see the area restored to it's former vibrancy. It should be a great part of town.

London Road used to be a very healthy shopping area, it had M&S next to Sainsbury. Woolies was on 2 floors. The Open Market was always busy with all the market stalls open with people queueing up to buy, along with 5-6 fish stalls. Now London road is full of charity shops, low scale shopping and it looks like scumsville.

I was looking forward to Aldi opening. Their produce is fine and reasonably priced and their chocolate is fab. I have been pleased to see some improvement in the area, particulary with the opening of an independent coffee shop in York Place. I'm no chav (not greatly attractive but I can't do much about that) but living and working in Brighton with such sad wages I need shops like Aldi - I like Waitrose but it's costly to do a whole shop there, and I have found fruit & veg at the open market becoming much more expensive of late. Variety is the way to go and not have eveything looking the same with few choices.

Knock it down and build a proper dual carriageway to get the traffic into and out of town!

London Road is a disgrace, in its run down state it attracts all the worse forms of humanity. Drug dealing takes place openly, street drinking is the norm and there is a general feeling of seediness and underlying violence. I certainly would not want to walk along there at night, its bad enough during the day. Where do all these people come from? Because the street is such a state there is no respect for the surroundings, despair breeds despair. It needs to be demolished!

It's a tricky one, how do we normally deal with areas in terminal decline? We knock it down and start again, it's the only way. No middle / upper end retailers are going to bother with it in the current state, so we get Aldi instead. It's self perpetuating.

London Road is the new North Laine!

It's an ideal location for another 'Stashconverters'

London Road - The back passageway of Brighton. Knock the whole lot down, and yep, start again. And not with an ALDI. I reckon Harrods, Harvey Nicks or Fortnum and Mason. I have had enough of the Scum around this part of Brighton. At least with a proper retailer, there would be proper policing to protect their new, better class of London Road Patron.

You lot make The Sun readers look intelligent.

Clearly the future for London Road is in a revamped Open Market and in attracting a selection of upmarket high street chains and individual shops. If small retailers are being priced out of the North Laine, it would only take a few to agree to move a few hundred yards to London Road for the area start to turn around.

How about replacing it with another Poundstretcher? Nice.

This area is crying out for a Greggs, Nobles Amusements, a cheque cashing store, Primark, Woolworths, Superdrug, a phone unlocking shop, a Wetherspoons, Corals, a lottery outlet and an Abrakebabra. Oh, and somewhere that I can collect my giro so that I can spend it all locally. Thats it thanks, the rest can be levelled.

[quote][bold]Tracee[/bold] wrote: This area is crying out for a Greggs, Nobles Amusements, a cheque cashing store, Primark, Woolworths, Superdrug, a phone unlocking shop, a Wetherspoons, Corals, a lottery outlet and an Abrakebabra. Oh, and somewhere that I can collect my giro so that I can spend it all locally. Thats it thanks, the rest can be levelled.[/quote] you forgot MAcD's, CashConverters, Peacocks and a CAB.

Show some humanity, you lot! More charity shops, that's what it needs.

As a Brighton exile living in Leeds who comes to visit family once a month I have to say London Road is definalty the worst area in Brighton. I actually wonder if the reason for the traffic being turned off at Preston Circus and down the bottom end of Ditchling Road was so that people visiting the city didnt have to see the mess. The derelict buildings start from the old Gala bingo block with a little break for some houses and offices in the middle and then goes all the way pretty much to Preston Circus. I agree, pull the lot down, widen the road to take the traffic away from the Open Market and on the land thats left covert it into a upmarket open air market. The major chains have enough shopping centres to trade from, lets have somewhere the small trader can trade from

>>>The Argus understands the store's first parking-free supermarket has not worked as well as expected, putting plans to open similar stores on hold.<<< But other places are not like London Road ! with all the passing trade and doorstep bus stops,its a perfect spot for an Aldi store,they WILL get more trade than they ever imagined.The biggest problem they'd be likely to have is shoplifters,but thats to be expected here. Lots of people like to shop at Aldi for various odds and ends and bargains,like some of those tasty imported snacks they sell that cant be found anywhere else.Its much better than the usual same-old supermarkets because the stock always changes.Even some (very!)posh people I know think Aldi's great,and go out of their way to travel there,its not just a poor persons shop some great stuff to be had at Aldi ! its just what London Road needs right now,its not like its going to 'lower the tone' of the place is it!? the only way is up(baby)

I like London Road: I still do my shopping in the Open Market; best place in Brighton to but cheese and fish. I remember when Sainsbury was just a small shop along there as my family have shopped there for about 50 years. It's a great location, just needs a bit of smartening up - the market redvelopment would be fantastic.

[bold]ITS SIMPLE[/bold] The whole area needs [bold]heavey policing[/bold] . Stop and searches, harass the street drinkers and drunks (pour it straight into the gutter), makes them move on all the time, get anyone that looks like a yob up against the wall and search them, any behaviour that comes even near to breaching the peace should mean a night in the cells etc etc etc. Make it a very bad place to be if you are anything other than decent citizen. The place will be [bold]transformed[/bold] in six months, and better shops and better people will come there. [bold]Guaranteed to work[/bold] - ZERO TOLERANCE - it worked in the roughest part of New York, so it will work here. In fact lets have [bold]ZERO TOLERANCE all over Brighton[/bold] , or [bold]havent you got the bottle for it Mr Chief Constable?[/bold]

London Road has always been the cheap shopping area of Brighton with the Open Market and until recently the Co-OP. It started to go down when M&S pulled out. Aldi would appear to be perfect for the area as it is now,suggestion of Waitrose is unreal. Zero Tolerance I would certainally support for a number of areas in this once great town.

[bold]ZERO TOLERANCE[/bold] What we need is some way to get a mass petition to the council and the police stating that the people demand a zero tolerance approach to everything thats anti social in the city of Brighton & Hove God knows how you do it - any ideas? Can the Argus help?

[italic]"The whole area needs "heavey policing."[/italic] Ok, lets take this one point at a time... I'm not sure what constitutes 'Heavy' Policing, but I know that there is currently a Police team which operates solely within the London Road/North Laine area. Although, as this is obviously a very busy area, you might not get to see them as often as you would want - join the queue. Every area of Brighton, and probably the country, thinks that it needs/deserves more Police Officers. [italic]"Stop and searches"[/italic] 'Stops' are done in their hundreds. Whenever I drive through London Road or St Peter's Church I see PCs or PCSOs taking names of groups of kids or street drinkers. I don't know what you expect the outcome to be from 'Stops' though, it certainly doesn't seem to scare anyone into behaving. 'Searches', I know, can only be conducted if the Police Officer has reason to believe that the person is currently in possession of drugs, weapons or stolen property (and no, "You look like a yob/junkie" doesn't cut it) [italic]"harass the street drinkers and drunks (pour it straight into the gutter), makes them move on all the time"[/italic] Hours of police time are spent confiscating booze from street drinkers - where does it get us? They just get more, either from robbing people, claiming more benefit, or just by nicking it, and they're back on the street in 5 minutes. 'Moving them on' only displaces the problem, and guarenteed by the time the coppers have gone down the road they'll be back in the same place. I for one don't want all the officers in Brighton spending their entire days chasing street drinkers around town. [italic]"get anyone that looks like a yob up against the wall and search them"[/italic] ...Entirely illegal... [italic]"any behaviour that comes even near to breaching the peace should mean a night in the cells"[/italic] ...Mmm. Except the Police can only work with the laws that currently EXIST. 'Nearly breaching the peace' isn't quite an arrestable offence, and on a Friday/Saturday night, the numbers of people 'breaching the peace' on London Road would be at least in the 30s. How many officers do you think Sussex Police has on duty at any one time? Because as far as I know, its rarely more than 12 for the whole of Brighton city centre. [italic]"etc etc etc."[/italic] Good point, well made. [italic]"Make it a very bad place to be if you are anything other than decent citizen. The place will be transformed in six months, and better shops and better people will come there."[/italic] As this is pure guesswork and supposition masquerading as fact, its kind of hard to disagree with, but I would say, 'highly unlikely'. All the policing in the world can't move an entire community of people out and ship new ones in. [italic]"Guaranteed to work - ZERO TOLERANCE - it worked in the roughest part of New York, so it will work here."[/italic] Hmm. Again, this is opinion that you're trying to pass off as fact. If you investigate this claim a little further, you'd find that much of the drop in the NY crime rate was attributed to 9/11 and the sense of community that followed. 'Zero tolerance' had very little real effect, and just a few years later the crime rate in those parts of town was back on the rise. And again, the Police here can only work with what the Government gives them. There's no 'three strikes' rule here, no-one gets put in prison for life, and certainly not after only three offences. You'd be highly unfortunate to get a sentence of more than 12 months for a violent crime that didn't kill someone, and even then you'd probably succeed in getting it reduced on appeal. Theft rarely gets anyone put in prison at all. Until the courts start giving out proper sentences again - (under no circumstances should someone receive a caution for rape, GBH, supply of class A) - the criminality in places like London Road will continue to flourish. [italic]"In fact lets have ZERO TOLERANCE all over Brighton , or havent you got the bottle for it Mr Chief Constable?"[/italic] Ending on a high. Once again, this isn't something that can be determined by individual forces. Do you think they sit around thinking 'lets be soft on criminals today, I like it better when there's more of them on the streets'? If you want the Police to have more powers and resources, you should be petitioning your local MP, not spewing mindless vitriol on here. And ever consider the possibility that the Police would be able to do a better job if they were supported more by "decent citizens" such as you claim to be - rather than constantly berated and ridiculed? That seems to be a part of the American model that you've managed to overlook - can you even imagine anyone over here ever referring to the Police, Fire crews and Paramedics as 'Britain's Heroes'? No, me neither. And no, I don't work for the Police. But I used to live with someone who did, and I think that the lack of support offered to the emergency services in this country is an utter disgrace.

[bold]Oh my god[/bold] A sensible sounding post to say the least, and all this knowledge has come from just [italic]knowing[/italic] a police officer? - credit is due! If what you say is true (and Im assuming it is) it sounds rather depressing to say the least, and indicates that the only thing that works is locking people up, which seems to happen less and less. Yep very depressing. Anyway, got to go, Ive been invited to a vigilante meeting . . .

[bold]'Nearly breaching the peace' isn't quite an arrestable offence,[/bold] Not strictly true. An arrest can be effected to PREVENT a breach of the peace. A great 'catch-all' power of arrest (breach of the peace is not actually an 'arrestable offence' but it has its own power of arrest.) So it could be done. the rest of your post is fairly well written. B+

"get anyone that looks like a yob up against the wall and search them" This must be just about the most moronic statement I have read in these forums.

[quote][bold]sm[/bold] wrote: [bold]'Nearly breaching the peace' isn't quite an arrestable offence,[/bold] Not strictly true. An arrest can be effected to PREVENT a breach of the peace. A great 'catch-all' power of arrest (breach of the peace is not actually an 'arrestable offence' but it has its own power of arrest.) So it could be done. the rest of your post is fairly well written. B+[/quote] The actual offence is "behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace". Unfortunately, this has been abused in the past by police officers who used it to arrest anyone whose lifestyle choices or skin colour they happened to dislike.

I cannot understand why anybody goes to the London Road. There is no reason to do, especially as it is violent and unsafe. Trafalgar Street is my limit. Beyond that it is no man's land until you get to Preston Park.

[quote][bold]Dr Cliff Huxtable[/bold] wrote: "What should be done to revive the London Road area? Leave your comments below." Knock it down and start again? Get rid of the street drinkers, skag-heads and overhwhelming number of scabby little chavs and their whores? Not put another cheap and nasty shop there to encourage more cheap and nasty people? Napalm? This place always reminds me of Croydon when I have to drive down there. Do it today and I guarantee you will not see one attractive person. I Guarantee.[/quote] Totally agree. I remember London Road in the 70's, when it was clean and busy. Free of chavs, drug users, alcoholics, and all the other excuses for humans this area seems to churn up. And where's the police when you need them.

[quote][bold]P State[/bold] wrote: "get anyone that looks like a yob up against the wall and search them" This must be just about the most moronic statement I have read in these forums.[/quote] Touched a nerve huh? Probably because you've been 'up against the wall' a few times yourself, or have you recently become an illegal 'resident' of a certain methodist church in London Road - idiot

There seems to be a number of posts on this thread saying what [bold]cant[/bold] be done about the scum element in the London Road area. What about a few suggestions as to what [bold]can[/bold] be done. Im getting fed up with hearing the Police cant do this and cant do that.

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