A PERMANENT ice rink in Brighton and Hove remains a possibility, as councillors approved plans that will see the Brighton Pavilion ice rink return every winter for the next six years.

The temporary ice rink on the Royal Pavilion’s Eastern Lawn has been given the go-ahead to return annually to Brighton until 2023.

City councillors unanimously approved the plans at a planning committee meeting on Wednesday.

The ice rink, run by Laine Ltd, faces the Old Steine and Pavilion Parade and has been a popular winter attraction in the city since 2009. It has capacity for 315 skaters on the rink at any one time.

It also has a café and bar, and a viewing platform so parents can watch their children.

The news will be a welcomed by keen ice skaters in Brighton and Hove, where there is no permanent ice rink.

Brighton previously had a full size ice rink open to the public from 1935 to 1965 at the Sports Stadium Brighton in West Street.

It was home to Brighton Tigers, one of Europe’s leading ice hockey teams at the time. It was demolished to make way for the Top Rank Centre which had a much smaller rink and proved to have inadequate provisions. It closed after only five years.

A small rink created in Queen Square closed in 2003.

The lack of ice rink in the city forced one child to write a letter to the Queen.

In 2015, 11-year-old Sonny Keywood wrote to Her Majesty after being fed up with having to make the 116-mile-round trip from Brighton to train with his ice hockey team the Guildford Flames.

Sonny’s campaign, which gained support from council leader Warren Morgan, included a 2,000-signature petition and led earlier this year to the council launching a soft marketing exercise to see if there was potential for a rink in the city.

Sonny, now 14, said: “A lot of ice hockey players and figure skaters have to travel miles to Guildford, Streatham and other places around the country. Brighton needs an ice rink as demand is growing, and there is not enough sports facilities for the population.”

Chair of the tourism development and culture committee, Alan Robins, said bringing a permanent ice rink back to the city remained on the agenda, despite challenges attracting a developer to build one.

Speaking to The Argus he said: “We soft marketed it at the beginning of the year to find someone to open one up, but we had very little interest unfortunately.

“But it is still on the agenda.

“If we could find someone to take it forward, we certainly would support it.

“It remains a popular idea in Brighton.”

The Pavilion ice rink will open to the public on November 4.