LESSONS must be learned to prevent the King Alfred ending up like the Brighton Centre, experts have warned.

Dr Geoffrey Mead, from the University the Sussex, said comparisons could be drawn between the newly unveiled £400 million leisure centre and housing scheme - with both being “highly unimaginative and dull”.

He said the city needs a development with some “pizzazz” but instead could be at risk of having a repeat of the Brighton Centre – which is earmarked for demolition as part of a £450 million redevelopment.

Dr Mead said: “When it was built the Brighton Centre was considered modern and of the brutalist design but it has never been a loved structure – why would you want to do something similar to that?”

He added: “The designs for the King Alfred look pretty mundane going as far as dire.

“It is such an unimaginative use for a prime site on the seafront. This is Brighton and Hove, we are famous for the dramatic, they never ever should have denied Gehry.”

The King Alfred redevelopment was described as “solid, dependable architecture” by Rory Olcayto, the editor of the Architects Journal.

But Dr Samer Bagaeen, from the University of Brighton, echoed Dr Mead’s sentiment and said “it is solid, but solid is not good enough”.

He said: “I do not think it is imaginative or iconic. We deserve something a lot more daring and the city needs something more daring – but this is just playing it safe.”

Dr Bagaeen warned the design itself could become “out of date” in five years and pointed to waterfront developments in Liverpool as more welcome examples of architecture.

The designs for new £40 million leisure centre and 560 apartments, headed by the Starr Trust and Crest Nicholson, were unveiled earlier this week to mixed reaction.

The lead architects on the scheme are London-based Haworth Tompkins who won the Stirling Prize in 2014 for Liverpool’s Everyman theatre and who were also selected for a home-building scheme in the London Olympic Park.

An extensive consultation is launching this summer and a planning application is to be submitted early next year.

Helmut Lusser, chairman of the Hove Civic Society, said: “There are two schools of thought, one is harking back to the Gehry Development that was much more Brighton.

“But if you remember there was incredible opposition to that scheme and now we have something which is much less exciting but more malleable.”

He added: “We would like to reserve our judgements in terms of the details. There is a lot which can be changed.”