Forty years of success
For the past forty years the association has been doing its best to protect our conservation area from unwelcome developments. In the 1980s we fought off plans to build a motorway-style road down to the seafront. More recently we successfully defeated plans to rob much of the area of its seaview by putting additional storeys on top of the tallest building in Western Road. And this year we finally persuaded the council that it should not allow the much-loved main building of the former Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital to be demolished. The council's planning committee approved a plan to convert the main building on 23rd February 2011. You can find out more about what is happening to the Alex by clicking here
The Montpelier and Clifton Hill Association is a registered charity. We currently have about 300 members. The association holds a permanent seat on the Brighton and Hove City Council's Conservation Advisory Group and is one of its oldest members. We have regular meetings and you can find out where next meeting is below. For central Brighton residents who join MCHA we offer:
How we work
The charity is governed by a committee of ten trustees. The current committee was elected at the Annual General Meeting held in St Michael and All Angels on Thursday 26th May. You can find a full list of committee members on the contacts page
You can find the election results in the pdf file below.
The committee meets every six weeks. If there is any issue that you think the committee should discuss you can email us at info@montpelierandcliftonhill.org. The date of the next committee meeting is on Thursday 8th September, to be followed by meetings on 20th October and 1st December. Groups of committee members also meet on an ad hoc basis to discuss more detailed matters. A number of MCHA members are taking part in the constitutional forum, which is discussing how to modernise our ancient constitution.
The last newsletter was published in July, the next issue will be published in November. The association also has a planning forum, which meets regularly to discuss significant planning proposals. The organiser of the planning forum is Graham Towers, who was elected vice chairman of the council's Conservation Advisory Group in May.
The Annual General Meeting
THE executive committee faced an unprecedented challenge at the annual general meeting from a slate of candidates promoted by Roger Amerena, a previous chairman. The contest prompted a high turnout with about 120 people attending the meeting. None of the candidates on the Amerena slate was successful.
The AGM, which was held in St Michael’s, was attended by Dominic Travers, a solicitor and expert in charity constitutions with DMH Stallard, to deal with a number of legal issues that had been raised.
Mr Travers ruled that Patrick Lowe, who was standing as chairman and secretary for the Amerena slate, was not eligible to stand because he lived and worked outside the area. So Jim Gowans was elected as chairman unopposed and Corinne Attwood was also elected unopposed as secretary.
In a secret ballot Mick Hamer, the outgoing chairman, beat Francis Tonks for the position of vice chairman by 45 votes to 31, Chris Jackson beat Martin Foster for treasurer by 46 votes to 30 and Alan Legg kept the job of membership secretary, fending off a challenge from David King by 46 votes to 32.
The remaining five committee places were won by Pauline Messum, Lori Pinkerton-Rolet, Ian Thorburn, Graham Towers and Gabi Tubbs. The committee has subsequently co-opted three additional members: Carol Dyhouse, David King and Jane Osler.
Following the AGM the committee has supplied a list of the 33 members who requested a Special General Meeting to Mr Travers. The SGM, which was held in March, decided to set up a constitutional forum to overhaul the MCHA's dated constitution, with the aim of producing recommendations for constitutional changes in about six months.
Constitutional change
The MCHA constitution is now 38 years old and beginning to show its age. But one of the main motives for change is the challenge presented by the plans for the old ice rink site.
Under the existing constitution the eastern boundary of our area stops at Dyke Road. The committee is keen to extend this area to cover those parts of the conservation area, notably Wykeham Terrace and St Nicholas’s church and churchyard, that lie to the east of Dyke Road. This will make it easier for the MCHA to challenge the ice rink plans at any public inquiry.
Earlier this year we set up a constitutional forum, which was attended by up to 13 members, to discuss how to change the constitution. We now have a draft constitution, which is closely based on the Charity Commission's model constitution.
Our current constitution says that trustees should live in the area. A majority on the forum thought this should be in the new constitution, but two members had reservations about this. The committee thinks one of the MCHA’s strengths is that it is a local group. There are other groups, such as the Regency Society, with a wider brief.
We discussed three ways of solving this problem. One was simply to say that trustees must live in the area. A second option was to have a “fuzzy boundary”, trustees would have to live within 100 metres of the boundary, which is the way lawyers interpret our current constitution. A third option would be to have a quota of two outsiders. Or we could combine options two and three.
Tell us what you think. We want your feedback.
Click on the pdf file to view the draft constitution.