BRIGHTON’S unofficial cathedral could remain under scaffolding for years to come as painstaking restoration work is carried out.

St Peter’s Church Reverend Archie Coates has revealed the work on the city centre church’s tower will take many years to fund and carry out.

Scaffolding went up around the grade-II listed tower in December 2014 for what Rev Coates described as “brick-by-brick” restoration work.

The giant scaffolding around the historic church’s tower is also helping to pay towards the work through the sale of advertising space.

Rev Coates said the fund had been boosted by thousands of pounds thanks to the advertisement agreement with London-firm blowUp Media.

Firms who have already paid to advertise on the giant 105 square metre banner include Ford (twice) and Arla Foods while further campaigns are also in the pipeline.

blowUp Media has already helped to pay for a number of heritage projects including through a long-standing relationship with St John’s Church in Fulham as well as installing replica facades on The Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Frankfurt Opera House.

St Peter’s Church is also enjoying some more conventional fundraising success in applying for a six-figure Heritage Lottery Fund grant and can apply for up to £250,000 from the same fund annually.

The grant has been used to carry out exploratory work on the tower to reveal the total restoration bill in excess of £1 million.

Rev Coates said: “It’s going to be a long programme of works.

“The grants we have been granted so far has allowed us to do exploratory work literally brick by brick to look at which needs restoring and which need replacing.

“That work has at least told us how much we need which is about £1 million so we’re probably going to need to go back a few times for different grants.

“We will look to start from the top and gradually work our way down but it will take several years, that’s the timescale we are looking at.”

To help donate to the restoration fund visit stpetersbrighton.org/giving.