Just over a year ago, the conservation architects employed by the council to assess the cost of repairing the Birdcage Bandstand estimated the figure would be £240,000. Now the council is asking the Heritage Lottery Fund for more than £1 million (Argus, July 1), to include landscaping works and repairs to a previously poorly-laid mosaic surface.
What's more, the council plans to spend yet more money commissioning an artist to design "a project to sit in the designated area".
The council had already spent money commissioning an artist but this scheme was abandoned as impractical.
The Birdcage Bandstand itself is a work of art and does not need further embellishment.
The entirely satisfactory geometric walls did not need to be demolished and the repairs to the mosaic should come from the repairs budget.
The Council itself admits in a report to the Environment Committee "there is a risk the Heritage Lottery Fund may only award a grant for the actual bandstand structure itself and not the surrounding area landscaping".
So why was the "setting of the bandstand with planting, low walls and seating" demolished?
-Selma Montford, honorary secretary, Brighton Society
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