Come along and discover how the story of the corner shop and local shopping parades fits in with today’s retail revolution.

The future of the elm tree was not included in the original consultation on the Seven Dials’ improvement scheme. But in January the council’s transport committee approved a plan for the improving the junction that included felling the 130-year old elm. Most local residents, and at least some of the councillors on the transport committee, were unaware that the scheme affected the elm.

Most local residents only found out about the plan to chop the elm when the council distributed a schedule of works towards the end of February.

Events moved quickly. The council seemed determined to fell the tree. Two protesters, Tom Druitt and Stephen Hendry, climbed the elm at 11 pm on 6 March. On 7 March the council was forced to send the tree surgeons home.The protest won a stay of execution for the elm and the council agreed to talks.

On 12 March more than 100 people packed the West Hill Community Hall on a freezing night to voice their support for the tree. The meeting set up the SaveOurTree group to campaign top save the elm. And more than 4,300 people, including local MP Caroline Lucas, signed a petition calling on the council to save the tree.

On 28 March the petition was presented to the council, which voted unanimously to ask officers to come up with a plan to save the tree. The MCHA has been active behind the scenes in supporting the efforts of local residents to save the tree. In mid-April the MCHA, and other local groups, wrote to the chair of the transport committee and other key councillors, asking them to use their efforts to save the tree.

In April the officers came up with a compromise plan. The pavement will be built out around the tree creating an additional 1-metre wide pathway between the tree and the road as well the existing pavement between the elm and the front garden walls. The width of the road in Vernon Terrace will be reduced from 7.4 metres to 6 metres, which is still wide enough for two-way traffic.

This was the plan that the transport committee agreed on 30 April. The works around the tree are due to start in mid to late May and will take around two to three weeks to complete.

Wykeham Terrace adjacent to the Ice Rink site

Lawyers have sent two letters to the Council on behalf of residents and local groups following the Council’s granting of planning permission for the tall six storey hotel on the site of the former ice rink on the southern boundary of the churchyard.

For those not already aware, the Planning Committee was branded by the press as a ‘shambles’ with members confused; the first vote to refuse permission being retaken once campaigners had left, officers misdirecting members during the voting and underplaying important information in the officer report and presentation.

The officer report and presentation made no mention of the churchyard being an important local park and relied on the developer’s view that the need to chop back important ancient elm trees was of little significance. All of which sets a very dangerous precedent for both future Brighton & Hove applications and national planning policy.

This led locals to believe the process was seriously flawed. The
Council administration are so determined to rail-road this development in
their hunger for the substantial sum of money they will get from selling
the site with planning permission, that serious local objections to the
way the Planning Committee handled the application would not be allowed
to stand in their way.

Local residents and organisations engaged specialist lawyers who studied
the pod-cast of the meeting and the accompanying minutes and officer
reports. The lawyers concluded the decision was unlawful and detailed
their findings on six pages of failures. They formally advised the
Council that the first vote to refuse planning permission should be
upheld as the only lawful decision the committee took. Alternatively
the application should be sent back to the planning committee to be
dealt with properly. The lawyers’ findings cited case law and other
council examples.

Sadly, the Council’s officers refuse to accept the wrong doing and their
lawyer merely brushes over many of the failings and unlawful procedures
set out in the residents’ lawyer’s letter.

Residents’ lawyers have demonstrated how the Council could and should
lawfully refer the application back to the Planning Committee to
consider it properly in an open and transparent manner with all parties
and interest groups being able to have their say.

Only a lack of political will amongst the Council’s Green administration
prevents this – their protestations that they cannot intervene are wrong
and disingenuous.

We therefore urge you to contact your local councillor and the Council
Leader, Jason Kitcat, to lobby for the return of the hotel application
back to the planning committee so it can be determined properly as this
would be the correct, legitimate, and only lawful and honourable action
to take.

Jason Kitcat’s email is: Jason.Kitcat@brighton-hove.gov.uk

The talk is part of the Friends of St Michael’s continuing fund-raising efforts. The Friends are raising money to carry out urgently needed work to stabilise the stained glass windows which are one of the glories of our only Grade-1 listed building.

The lecture is at 3.00pm on Saturday 6^th October. Admission is £10 and includes tea and cake.

Twentieth-century research has recast the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as radicals, writes Carol Jacobi. In 1848 revolutions swept through nearly every country in Europe and seven students banded together to generate a revolution in art. The Pre-Raphaelites were the first to self-consciously style themselves as ‘Young British Artists’ wrenching British painting away from convention and dependence on European Old Masters.

The Pre-Raphaelites lived at a time of tremendous industrial and economic change when everything was being redefined – work, society, beliefs. The men and women in the Pre-Raphaelite circle experimented with all of these; their convictions, lifestyle and relationships were as radical as their art. Their passionate, anti-establishment personalities matched the daring stories and extreme techniques of their dazzling and sometimes disturbing paintings.

Carol Jacobi writes and broadcasts about British art and is Tate Curator of British Art 1850-1915

It must be hoped that some of this money will be made available to enhance the visual appearance of this busy and cosmopolitan part of the city.

There is concern that the money will simply be spent on diverting traffic from the roundabout onto neighbouring residential streets with accidents being conveniently dispersed in the process. Whatever the outcome of the council’s decision next spring, we should not expect any magical transformation, bearing in mind the £750,000 cost of the cycle lane in the Drive, Hove. With traffic lights alone costing some £70,000 to install on each crossing there is a likelihood we will have to live with a dismal utilitarian junction, at least until another council regime comes up with its own  “improvement scheme” .

Carol Dyhouse, who is committee member, is representing the MCHA’s interests. One of our key concerns is not to see an increase in traffic on Dyke Road the eastern border of the conservation area and the road that runs past the Royal Alexandra Quarter development.

In the past few years there has been a large number of cycle accidents at the Seven Dials and the council hopes to introduce traffic management measures to reduce the number of accidents.

The MCHA’s 41st Annual General Meeting was held on a blustery night at St Michael’s to the accompaniment of rattling stained glass windows. Members voted unanimously to approve the new constitution, by 30 votes to nil. There were no abstentions.

The new constitution is based on the Charity Commission’s model constitution for charities of our size and it replaces the old constitution, which dates from the days before there was even a conservation area.

The most important change is in the definition of the MCHA’s area. Under the old constitution our eastern boundary was Dyke Road. Now we include those parts of the conservation area that lie to the east of Dyke Road, notably the church-yard and part of Church Street as well as Wykeham Terrace.

There is also a significant change in the wording of our objectives. Under the old constitution we were only concerned with planning developments in our area–although in practice we frequently stretched a point. The new constitution makes it plain that the MCHA is concerned with any proposal that affects our area, and not just those that are physically within the area.

In the elections for the committee all those standing were elected unopposed. The only change on the committee is that Lori Pinkerton-Rolet has had to stand down because of the pressure of work. She is replaced by Michael Fisher, who lives in Wykeham Terrace–houses that are now formally part of our area. He is  secretary of the Wykeham Terrace Residents’ Association and on the Regency Society’s committee.