The problems which have hit the Brighton O project could keep up the depressing trend of ambitious plans for the city falling by the wayside. The Argus revealed this week that planning officers at Brighton and Hove City Council have recommended that proposals for the attraction should be refused. If their decision is ratified by elected councillors on Wednesday, the £6million scheme will be unable to go ahead. But business leaders say the latest hiccup may not be as bad as it first seems. Andy Chiles reports.

This week’s headlines about the Brighton O had an oh-so-familiar ring to them.

In the past two years the reports about developments which will not be happening have flowed thick and fast.

Whether it was for financial reasons or planning concerns, and whether they had been popular or not, we have seen one ambitious scheme after the other flounder.

The King Alfred centre redevelopment plans collapsed altogether, while proposals for Brighton Marina, the Black Rock arena, the Brighton Centre and the i360 viewing tower have all seemed to be locked in interminable delays.

Even the Christmas ice rink planned for the Royal Pavilion had to be dropped because of planning problems.

There has been little for either fans of big projects or their opponents to get excited about.

And the one major scheme that finally has got underway, the Falmer Stadium, provides the starkest warning of all about how long progress can take – it is now ten years since the idea was conceived.

Of course the emerging football ground does also offer an example of what can still be achieved in Brighton and Hove with an exceptional amount of dogged determination.

Although the circumstances behind each of the high profile headlines has been different, they have inevitably led to a bigger picture about Brighton and Hove which is becoming increasingly problematic.

Recession or not, it is beginning to look as though the city is somewhere that things do not happen.

It is a problem Brighton and Hove City Council is acutely aware of and is at pains to try and remedy.

The last thing they want is for big investors, or people with ambitious visions, to start ignoring the city.

They need the luxury of having the choice of what can come into Brighton and Hove, and what they should let go elsewhere.

This week, as it has done with increasing regularity, the council released a statement to say that major projects were taking place in the city, such as the expansion of American Express's Edward Street offices, and the redevelopment of the Sackville Trading Estate in Hove, an 800-bed student hall in Brighton and parts of the Sussex County Cricket Ground in Hove.

A council spokesman pointed out that for its part the council more often than not approved major planning applications.

He said: "In fact, cases where the planning committee has turned down major applications are rare. Since this administration came to power in May 2007 it has turned down just three major applications against officers’ recommendations.

“It has also approved five against officers’ recommendations."

All of which will provide little comfort to traders in the area around the 60m tall ferris wheel Brighton O’s proposed seafront site, close to the derelict West Pier.

Dozens of them had written to the council asking for the plan to be backed to give their businesses a boost.

Their plight provides a microcosm for the more widely felt feelings around the city over the succession of delayed and collapsed projects.

Traders in Preston Street were particularly vociferous, just months after pleading with the council to do something to help their struggling area, close to one of the few remaining stretches of the seafront not to be regenerated.

They have waited decades for action to create a proper tourist attraction, first in the hope of the West Pier being restored and more recently for the i360, which remains subject to continual delays despite architects' Marks Barfield's insistence it will be built.

If the council's planning committee finalises the recommendation to reject the Brighton O next week it will be another glimmer of light for the traders to flicker out.

Angelo Martinoli, chairman of Preston Street Traders Association, said: "It is very important for us to have something there. We have seen 17 shopfronts left empty in Preston Street because we don't have the footfall anymore. We have asked the council to speak to us to find a solution but we have had nothing."

However, others in the business community were more optimistic.

Simon Fanshawe, chairman of the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership, said he believes it was much more important for the long-term good of the city that the i360 was built.

One of the reasons the Brighton O, proposed as a two-year temporary attraction, has been earmarked for refusal is that its site would interfere with construction for the neighbouring i360.

Mr Fanshawe said: "The i360 is a long term project and has been brought by people with a world class reputation, showing they are capable of delivering. It is not worth a candle to risk any damage to the i360 project to build the O."

What will also remain a concern is the prospect of the council being subjected to yet another planning appeal, like the recent battle over its rejection of proposals for part of Brighton Marina.

That case, which will be finalised around March, has so far cost more than £200,000 of tax-payers' money in legal fees.

The idea of the Brighton O has not proved overly popular with residents, aside from the local traders, and it may be that the recommendation of the planning officers is the right one.

Whatever happens it will add another stroke to the bigger picture.

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