BRIGHTON is paying the price for being an innovator in conferences and exhibitions in the 1960s and 70s.

Realising that cheap foreign travel meant the bucket and spade days were over for British resorts, Metropole Hotel owner Harold Poster built an exhibition centre at the back.

It brought new business to Brighton but other cities with more land built bigger venues, notably Birmingham with its National Exhibition Centre.

City councillors sanctioned the first purpose-built conference centre which opened in 1977 at a cost of £10 million.

The Brighton Centre succeeded brilliantly in attracting major conferences, notably the political conventions which were much prized at the time.

As a bonus it became one of the biggest entertainment venues in Britain with 5,000 people able to enjoy everything from Shirley Bassey to international women’s tennis.

But the centre dated quickly and struggled even after having an east wing built in the 1990s.

The acoustics were rotten, rendering most pop concerts devoid of atmosphere and making classical music almost impossible to stage.

Bigger rivals were able to attract top entertainers with Wembley and the O2 centre in London taking trade away from Brighton.

Conferences needed break out and exhibition space which the barn-like Brighton Centre could not easily provide.

More than a decade ago the city council started talks with neighbouring owners such as Rank who ran the Kingwest, the Metropole and Standard Life, owners of Churchill Square.

The idea was to pull down the Brighton Centre and the King’s West building nearby, extending Churchill Square southwards and revitalising the Metropole halls.

At the same time, ice rinks could be built at Black Rock capable of being converted into a new convention centre.

The recession made this a hard dream to come true. The main parties could not agree on a solution and the ice promoters, although sincere, never had the money to proceed.

But this month a fresh version of the old scheme has emerged. The ice has melted at Black Rock leaving a proposed 10,000 seat conference centre there.

Churchill Square could be extended to the seafront and an extra is a 20-storey apartment block at the bottom of West Street.

This is not a new idea since one was proposed close by as part of the original Churchill Square scheme as a partner to Chartwell Court. It was scuppered through lack of demand.

Black Rock has been disused since 1979 when the swimming pool closed due to structural faults.

Since then ideas for a water theme park, a hotel and a spa have all foundered.

Getting rid of the Brighton Centre and King’s West, two of the city’s ugliest buildings, would not cause many tears.

But the tall tower would have to be well designed to grace one of the best locations in Brighton.

There is also tremendous scope for the extended Churchill Square to be a handsome building with sweeping sea views. What Brighton does not want is a bog-standard design.

Does Brighton need a large new conference centre? The political parties don’t favour seaside resorts much any more for conferences and the Tories still have ghastly memories of the bomb attack 30 years ago.

Most conferences are small but a flexible modern arena would enable Brighton to capture some of the international giants and leading entertainers.

But this could be at a cost. Brighton had to sell valuable assets to build the 1977 centre and it still left each resident paying £10 a year for decades.

The new scheme at Black Rock and West Street could come in at more than £450 million.

There is also the vexed problem of transport. Entrepreneur David Courtney has proposed a monorail between the Marina and city centre for many years.

Monorails are fast, safe and cheap to build compared with other systems.

There are problems of switching from one track to another, although these can be overcome.

Any road-based system such as buses would cause congestion on an already crowded seafront.

Standard Life was bold 20 years ago in revamping Churchill Square when the trend was towards out of town centres.

The council showed courage in forsaking its ownership.

The two partners now need to show similar flair in making the current proposals viable.

It will take time simply to draw up a scheme let alone plan and finance it. But Brighton has always fared best when it has thought big.

The Brighton Centre and Metropole have each served Brighton well and continue to do so despite difficulties.

The new scheme should produce benefits which with luck and judgment will last longer.

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