Former council planner dies

12:03pm Friday 28th March 2008

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A former council planner who helped shape modern Brighton has died.

Ken Fines, who ran Brighton council's planning department, passed away at home on Easter Monday. He was 85.

Born in Hove in 1923, Mr Fines lived most of his life in the city apart from five years during the Second World War when he served in Burma.

He married Betty in 1946. She passed away in 1999.

In 1974 Mr Fines became borough planning officer for Brighton and set to work conserving its Victorian features.

He was instrumental in preserving of the North Laine area which he named after the former field on which it stood.

In the 1960s the area was earmarked to be knocked down and replaced with flats and offices.

A flyover road from Preston Circus down to a large car park off North Street was also considered and would have gone right through the centre of the North Laine.

In 1976 the council agreed to make the North Laine a conservation area. Today, it is celebrated as one of Brighton's most eclectic quarters. In his honour a Himalayan birch was planted by the North Laine Community Association in Sydney Street in 2004.

Jackie Fuller, chairwoman of the association, said: "Brighton owes him an enormous debt of gratitude and we in the North Laine area will certainly miss him." In 2003 Brighton and Hove City Council hired developer Karis to design and build a new leisure complex on the King Alfred site in Hove. Mr Fines was outraged at the plans for tower blocks on the land as well.

A staunch believer in maintaining the city's historic appearance and having retired as borough planning officer in 1983, he formed the Heritage Over Vandalism Actually group in opposition.

Mr Fines leaves two daughters, Julie Smith and Susan Barnbrook, and two grandchildren.

Susan said: "He was very proud of the city and what he had done here."

Mr Fines wrote a book, A History of Brighton and Hove, in 2002. A prolific letter writer to The Argus, Mr Fines was voted among the top ten Sussex heroes by Argus readers as part of the paper's 125th anniversary.

Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, chairman of Brighton and Hove City Council's environment committee, said: "Ken was a much respected public servant who loved the place. He'll be much missed."

Mr Fines's funeral will be at St Helen's Church, Hangleton, at noon on April 7.