A CONTROVERSIAL bid to redevelop a seafront leisure centre could be blocked by a rival developer.

Citygrove Leisure plans to spend up to £30 million transforming the King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove.

The scheme would involve building a casino, 11 cinema screens, restaurants, a sports hall, a health and fitness centre and parking at the Kingsway site.

It was approved, with strict conditions, by Brighton and Hove Council in September and the decision was backed by the Government last month.

Citygrove Leisure hoped to open the site in two years' time, despite angry protests from residents living nearby, who feared traffic chaos.

But Odeon Cinemas, which is planning to spend £10 million on a major facelift of its

ten-screen multiplex in West Street, is hoping to mount a legal

challenge to block the development.

The firm is planning to spend £10 million redeveloping the cinema in West Street, Brighton, and add bars, a casino and a Hard Rock Cafe.

It will ask a judge to for a judicial review to assess whether the council was right to grant planning permission to Citygrove Leisure.

A spokesman for

Odeon Cinemas, owned by Rank Leisure, said: "We can only mount a challenge if we consider there is a question mark over the validity of granting planning permission in the first place.

"We are challenging the legal validity of the planning permission. If we prove it was erroneously granted, costs will be awarded against the council and could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Jonathan Newton, finance director of

Citygrove Leisure, was dismissive of the bid but admitted it could hold up plans.

He added: "We will fight this. It's the last bit of mud they can throw at us. It will hold us up perhaps for six months."

Alan Stone, of Brighton and Hove Council, said: "It's common practice for rival companies to use the legal process to buy time.

"This often happens where a developer sees another project as competition and wants to stop them getting to the market first.

"Our planning consent was backed by the Government who decided not to call it in for its own judgement.

"Under those circumstances, any council would feel on pretty safe ground."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.