SEAFRONT traders have responded to Warren Morgan’s plan B for the Terraces with scepticism and anger.

Traders have described plans to crowdfund part of the project as “abhorrent” and “ludicrous” while claiming it’s two years too late to use pop-ups in an area where footfall has declined.

Madeira Drive businesses have also questioned the city council’s ability to manage the major multi-million pound project to save the Terraces with some calling for the private sector or heritage groups to take over.

Tina Haynes, Concorde 2 co-director, said: “Everybody pays their business rates, their taxes, their rents. I think asking us to pay for it is abhorrent and ludicrous.

“Crowdfunding is what you do when some poor fellow cannot get his cancer treatment, not for something like this.

“The footfall on Madeira Drive now is non-existent. The council has turned it into a car park, a dangerous car park. Pop-ups haven’t worked very well so far, Something Street for example.”

Steve Honeysett of the Honeysett Gallery said: “It is two years too late. We came up with the idea of a Portacabin-based artists’ village and if the council had agreed to it you could have had 20 artists working out of there now.

“But the council said ‘no’. It said work on the Sea Lanes project would be starting and we couldn’t use the space.”

Mr Honeysett said the council was still being too closed about details for the project and had not sought other ideas such as designs by architect Paul Nicholson, backed by structural engineer John Orrell, incorporating luxury flats and new roof-top public gardens.

He said: “It is an idea with real commercial viability which the council should be considering and it would not take £4 million of seed funding.

“A sign has only just gone up on the Terraces fence saying we are interested in your ideas – the fence has been up for a year.”

Mrs Haynes believes the council should take greater responsibility for failing to secure the £4 million funding.

She said: “Someone is responsible for missing out on the funding.

“If it was in the private sector and it was someone’s responsibility to secure £4 million of funding and they failed, they would get the sack.”

Jag Gallery owner Gary Silver described the latest appeal for help as a “complete joke” and said now was the time to hand the project over to the private sector.

He said: “We all offered our help and ideas two years ago and the council didn’t want to know. The result is that two years on, nothing has changed and no progress has been made.”