AN activist who helped raise more than £26,000 for crumbling Madeira Terrace said she will “never give up” on the regeneration project

It comes after it was announced that a second Heritage Lottery Fund bid to help restore the historic arches on Brighton’s seafront had failed.

Jax Atkins from the Save Madeira Terrace campaign said: “Of course I’m very, very gutted.

“But to be honest I never expected it would have been successful.”

Mrs Atkins raised thousands for the city council’s successful crowdfunding campaign

last December which raised £463,000.

The campaign was set up to restore three of the 152 arches and prove a strong public mandate for future funding applications.

It was suggested at the time that the work would begin during summer this year.

Mrs Atkins believes that if the work had already been started, the lottery funding bid would have had a better chance of success.

She said: “We can apply again in March but I don’t think we’ll get anywhere if we don’t start the work

“It think it might deter them that we haven’t started.

“That was over a year ago and nothing has been done, a project manager has been put in place so I’m very disappointed

that the first three have not been done.”

Mrs Atkins, who said she remains dedicated to seeing the arches restored to their former glory, has outlined her fundraising plans for next year.

Her next raffle will be in February and there are plans to hold a bric-a-brac event on Madeira Drive in May or June.

She said: “It is a drop in the ocean but it will help people get engaged.

“We’re planning to restart our monthly clean-ups in the terraces and hopefully the council will procure someone to begin the work on the arches.”

It is expected that restoring all the arches will cost upwards of £24 million.

Nick Hibberd, Brighton and Hove City Council’s executive director of economy, environment and culture, said: “Unfortunately for us at the moment, there are a lot of other deserving projects bidding for the same pot of money and Brighton and

Hove has already received a considerable amount of Heritage Lottery Fund money to support some of our much-loved historic assets.

“Our focus in the new year is to get work on the first three crowdfunded arches started.”

The council said it was working towards starting the crowdfunded arches in the spring.

Mr Hibberd said: “It’s taken us longer than we’d hoped to get to this point but there’s a strong team of determined characters behind this – both within the council and the community – and we’re not looking back, we’re going forward.”

Boxpark chief executive and founder Roger Wade previously submitted £100 million plans to revive the arches which included restaurants, shops, office spaces and a hotel.

Daniel Yates, leader of the council, said about the proposal: “At present we have no intention of altering the plans we have been carefully researching with specialists and residents.”