Is the redevelopment of a prime seafront site back on?

Controversial plans to demolish the King Alfred leisure centre site in Hove and replace it with a multi-million-pound scheme collapsed four years ago after funders dropped out.

Since then Brighton and Hove City Council has spent more than £2 million on the building just to keep it open to the public.

But, as part of a wider look at sports facilities in the city, the local authority last night agreed to use £40,000 to set up a project team to look at future options for the site.

Geoffrey Bowden, the council’s leisure and tourism cabinet member, said: “We have reached a point of no return with the King Alfred.

“It breaks my heart to see money poured into a facility like that to do necessary repairs which if we ignored would mean we could be closed down by health and safety or environmental health.

“When I joined colleagues on a tour of the facilities recently and we went into some of the hidden areas we were told, ‘Don’t go in there because of asbestos’.

"We were shown the indoor bowling alley which had strategically placed buckets across the floor.

“I’m pleased as we really need to set up a project board. I hope we can look at the issues and move forward with a reasonable aspiration and with a reasonable cost.”

Plans by architect Frank Gehry to demolish the King Alfred and replace it with a new sports complex and 750 flats were approved by the local authority in 2007.

However the scheme collapsed when the principal funder, Dutch bank ING, withdrew its money a year later as the recession hit.

Since then the local authority has spent more than £2.2 million on essential maintenance and improving the leisure facilities at the site.

The running of the King Alfred has now been handed over to Freedom Leisure which is carrying out further work expected to be completed by May.

As the new strategy was approved, Conservative councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn said: “We have to have a degree of realism.

“We do not want to build people’s hopes up and deliver a reasonable result which will disappoint residents.”

A council spokesman confirmed it was the “very earliest stage” in any potential redevelopment of the site.

He added: “There have been no decisions on what should be done with the site – that’s the kind of thing this new group would look at.

“Public consultation would be cru- cial at every significant stage.”