Decade of music history is lost at Brighton venue due to leaking roof

Concorde 2 managing director Russel Haynes is calling on his landlord Brighton and Hove City Council to repair the venue’s roof to stop water seeping inside its walls.

The boss at the Madeira Drive venue made an appeal to save a wall featuring signatures from top musicians dating back ten years in January.

But Mr Haynes said the speed water was now entering the building meant the wall was beyond repair and risked causing greater damage to the Victorian building.

Council officials said attempts to repair the roof had been hampered by difficulties in contacting the venue’s management.

Concorde 2, whose management invested £100,000 into refurbishments over the last 18 months, has been under the scaffolding propping up Madeira Terraces for the past two years.

Mr Haynes said rubbish being dumped on to the scaffolding was speeding up the rate of water ingress.

Attempts to clear away the rubbish have been hampered because of restricted access.

During heavy rain, water rushes down the office walls and is collected in buckets.

Mr Haynes said: “I have been asking the council for three-and-a-half years to get my roof fixed. The wall has completely had it. There was a chance of saving it but it has rapidly got worse over the last few weeks. I have had to vacate out of the office, I have to work from home now.”

A council spokesman said they had carried out some “partially successful” work but were keen to try to resolve the persistent leaks.

He said the only access via the Madeira Lift had been broken since January.

He said: “At the end of March we were informed by the tenant that the lift was still not fully operational so the council arranged for further repairs to be carried out. Now the lift has been fixed we have since left several messages offering different options for our availability to meet with the tenants and to inspect the roof above their offices, but have had no reply.”