Traditionally, British political parties have held their annual conferences in the autumn by the seaside.

For many years they were sufficiently small for resorts such as Scarborough and Llandudno to stage them.

But as they grew and media interest intensified, only two seaside resorts were big enough and had the number of hotel rooms to act as hosts.

In Brighton they were held at the old Sports Stadium, where flooring was laid over the ice rink, giving rise to jokes about hot air and cold feet. In Blackpool they were staged in the magnificent but antiquated Winter Gardens.

When the Sports Stadium closed unexpectedly in the mid-1960s, conferences moved a few yards down West Street to the Top Rank Centre on the corner of King’s Road.

But part of that building was converted into cinemas in 1971, making it impossible to host conferences there any more.

Brighton then took the bold decision to commission Britain’s first purpose-built conference centre. It sold precious land and property holdings to pay the cost, estimated at £4 million.

The final bill for the Brighton Centre was £10 million and the cost was £10 a year for everyone living in the town. But the building, which doubled as an entertainments venue, soon paid its way.

It was never far away from political controversy, starting with the opening in 1977. Stanley Theobald, driving force behind the venture, wanted the Prime Minister to open it, but some other members of the ruling Tory group objected.

Theobald won the day and Labour’s Jim Callaghan came down from his farm in Ringmer to make a speech without a hint of party politics.

Brighton saw the biggest demo in its history by the Right To Work campaign soon after Margaret Thatcher had become Prime Minister. There were 13,000 people on the streets and two of them found their way into the conference hall to disrupt her speech.

It was also in Brighton that Mrs Thatcher made her famous speech rejecting U-turns, adding, “The lady’s not for turning.”

At a Labour conference, Denis Healey beat Tony Benn by less than 1% to become deputy leader in a move that had far-reaching consequences for the party.

Later, Neil Kinnock was elected leader and managed to slip in the sea while posing for photographers on the beach.

But the most dramatic event of all occurred at the 1984 Conservative conference, when an IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel killed five people, injured many more and almost removed the Prime Minister.

The Tories have seldom returned since to a resort with dreadful memories for them but even before that, Bournemouth had built a more modern rival to the Brighton Centre.

In recent years, all three parties have held conferences in major cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow, increasing the number of competitors to Brighton.

But Labour is back in Brighton this weekend for its conference and there are signs that most delegates would rather be here than anywhere else.