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King Alfred hopes fade

1:40pm Friday 17th October 2008

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The controversial King Alfred development will not be built for years even if a backer supports the plan, the project’s developer has conceded.

Josh Arghiros, director of Karis, broke the news after Brighton and Hove Council leader Mary Mears expressed renewed doubt the £290m development will ever be built.

Yesterday, just weeks before the council’s development agreement with Karis expires on November 9, Councillor Mears told cabinet members: “We are clearly not very hopeful at present that an alternative funder can be found to replace the Dutch Bank ING who have withdrawn from the project.”

She said a report concerning the scheme would be discussed at November’s cabinet meeting and added: “We are not in a position at the present time to make any final position statements on the subject of the King Alfred.”

However, last night Mr Arghiros said he remained hopeful the development would go ahead, saying he had two interested investors.

He added the current economic situation meant major developments were not moving forward.

He said: “The world is a different place to what it was six months ago but we do have two investors who are both interested. They are quite willing to come forward and take part in the project but no one is actually willing to start a development now.

“We will be putting our case across to the council when we meet with them next week.”

He added the company will ask the council to extend the development agreement between them.

Mr Arghiros said: “We want an extension to the development agreement until the market is confident again.”

However, he admitted that it will be “a matter of years”.

Mr Arghiros added: “If the council says no it will be back to square one and I think it will be a huge shame for the city. No one is moving forward on any major development at the moment and this is the sensible thing to do, to wait until the market is strong again.”

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ruthrose, Hove says...
2:07pm Fri 17 Oct 08

How much clearer can it be that Josh Aghiros is just trying to keep in the frame by extending the development agreement until he can pull himself back from the brink. Why should the agreement be extended? What use is an agreement if it cannot be relied on? There is an opportunity now for the Council to take hold of the situation and put right the years of neglect that have left Hove with a run-down and dilapidated sports centre and deprived the residents of a wonderful facility. What is crucial now is that there are no more "behind closed doors" deals and everything is out in the open. Too many years have been wasted on this application already.

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BBBrighton, Brighton says...
2:29pm Fri 17 Oct 08

Josh Aghiros is a nice name

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aat99, Hove says...
3:20pm Fri 17 Oct 08

and people still think Falmer will be built !!!! where's the money coming from ???

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Crunchie, says...
3:34pm Fri 17 Oct 08

Cash is king. If people have cash, things can get built. If they're relying on home sales or loans, then they're in trouble.

AFAIK Falmer doesn't have any housing, so as long as the club have the cash they should be OK.

King Alfred = loans + housing. No chance.

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Wiggsy, Hove says...
3:56pm Fri 17 Oct 08

Wouldn't this be a marvellous opportunity if it meant that in the (unlikely!) event they totally reconsidered the development to utilise this land to make a truly top/world class sporting complex - it is something like that which would really put B&H on the map, not more apartments that our already struggling infrastructure cannot cope with

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bring back TVS, Brighthelmstone says...
4:29pm Fri 17 Oct 08

Lets just put it in the 'never to be seen again file' I call it 'The Lockwood Files' after the hapless Geoff Lockwood from the West pier trust who never did (despite public goodwill and 30 years) rebuild the West Pier.

other examples include:

Jubilee scrub land
Black Rock
West pier Tower (i360)
Brightons new Stadium
decent park and ride
rebuilding the chain pier
poohaven
rebuilding the Brighton centre

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original grumpy, hove says...
4:34pm Fri 17 Oct 08

Exactly Wiggsy.
And, fer cryin out loud, as I'm sick of repeating since Frank Gehry stated several months ago on Radio 4 that "WE'RE NOT DOING THAT NOW" (referring to the Hove development) - you can't build a project this size without the architect! Where was the Argus headline after that Gehry interview! You have to come to the conclusion that this paper only prints what Aghiros feeds them.

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Brigadier Monty, Burgess Hill says...
4:59pm Fri 17 Oct 08

This is good, maybe they will re-develop the King Alfred a bit and give it a lick of paint??? I am now glad I re-joined Cheetahs gym for another year, yippee!!!

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NoWayIsBack, Hove says...
5:31pm Fri 17 Oct 08

For god's sake. No-one wants this stupid thing anyway!

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ICantThinkOfAName, LANCING says...
7:30pm Fri 17 Oct 08

A reason given for the new B & H administration not cancelling the development as promised in their manifesto was that there would be financial penalties against the Council.

Now that the developers are not able to proceed, why aren't their financial penalties against them to the benefit of the Council?

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toujaty, Brighton says...
8:10pm Fri 17 Oct 08

I hear the sound of whistling in the dark here from football fans about the Falmer Stadium. Those who heard the statements from football club spokesmen last week will know that despite their forced optimism, funding for the stadium has not been secured. There is no possibility of a financial institution providing many tens of millions of pounds to a football club that is: a) struggling in the third tier of English football, b) incapable of drawing an audience to fill its existing small ground, and, c) barely able to finance its operations from year to year. No bank would have approved loans on that prospectus, even without the present national and global difficulties. It is precisely because the Falmer stadium has no collateral housing or commercial potential that made it a dubious financial and operational case from the outset. It is now certain not to go ahead and what we need is some long delayed honesty about it from the club and the city council.

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davyboy, abingdon, oxon says...
9:36pm Fri 17 Oct 08

good. looks horrible anyway

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stan bailey, brighton says...
5:36pm Sat 18 Oct 08

Unfortunately doesn't the football stadium have funding from Seeda, which is probably tax payers money

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toujaty, Brighton says...
6:23pm Sat 18 Oct 08

You're right, Stan, Seeda is providing some of us taxpayer's cash but only (!) about £6m to do the access roads. The club still have to find the rest - which will be about £55m on current estimates, or probably nearer £65m as the costs will almost certainly overrun. The city council has already given away taxpayers' assets by providing the land to the football club virtually rent-free, so they don't have to pay for that, but seriously, how are a club like Brighton & Hove going to fund that sort of sum in the present financial climate? The city council has pledged to council tax payers that no work will start on publicly owned land until their experts have been assured that there is an achievable funding plan in place. Unless the club have some very unhealthy relationships with city hall, that will never happen.

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Gentleman Jim, North Brighton says...
8:41pm Sat 18 Oct 08

toujaty,you are absoulutley right,how can anybody imagine that the people who run Brighton & Hove Albion can possibly afford to pay for the huge loans necessary for the planned stadium, when they are unable to buy players good enough to get them out of their present league.They will not reveal which bank/banks have agreed to support this scheme,that says it all.

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thensx, Hove says...
6:19am Sun 19 Oct 08

Oh no, has anyone told Brad Pitt that he is going to be laid off?

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King from Hove, Hove says...
10:29am Sun 19 Oct 08

Drop this unwanted even by Gehry himself project.Get EU and central government funding and build a state of the arts Leisure centre catering for all sports.Maybe even a cinema comples.Even use the millions of council taxpayers monies saved by the council who pulled out all the deposits from the Icelandic Banks.Most councils have lost all their money.We havent so put it to good use.

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The King Alfred scheme is under threat The King Alfred scheme is under threat

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