COUNCILLORS have agreed on a ten-year plan to invest £100 million to protect Brighton and Hove’s iconic seafront.

There was cross-party support for the recommendations for the city’s historic promenade at last night’s Brighton and Hove City Council policy and resources committee meeting.

Proposals put before the committee included investigating methods of delivering the funding.

Proposed sources of funding included ring-fenced income generated by the seafront.

Geoff Raw, executive director at the council, said the local authority’s recent projects had been “greatly watched” by the investment community and had positively influenced their “appetite to invest”.

The report also included a suggestion of crowdfunding in a similar fashion to that employed by those behind Hastings Pier. The group managed to raise enough money to receive a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Councillor Warren Morgan, leader of the Labour group, described the seafront as “one of the biggest challenges facing the city”.

He said: “I think this report highlights that there has not been joined up thinking on the seafront in the past and it’s been divided between different officers and departments and that has partly led us to where we are now.”

Last year, The Argus exclusively revealed the need for substantial investment in the seafront.

In April 2014, the reality of the situation hit the front pages when a section of the seafront collapsed above the Fortune of War pub.

Green council leader Jason Kitcat said the report had helped “crystallise our thinking on our shop front”.

He added: “In the past some great things were done to improve that seafront but they were not always self-sustaining.

“Self-sustainability has to be the mould moving forward given the economic circumstances councils find themselves in.”

There were also calls for more communication with the public regarding the seafront.

Gary Peltzer Dunn, Conservative councillor for Wish ward, stressed the need to consider both residents and visitors and said the “seafront’s extremities” must not be neglected.

A further report on the seafront will now be prepared for the local authority’s policy and resources committee in March.