Brighton & Hove 7 Days of Headlines with Phil Mills
No John Lewis, bike thefts from station on the rise and council plan to clamp down on gulls
Boo hoo! The nation’s favourite store John Lewis, tipped to open a branch in a £100m redevelopment of a site near Hove station, is now not coming.
Developers scuppered a rumour that the store was to be the star commercial attraction for the development, which will include the Conway Street bus depot. Work won’t start until 2014 at the earliest but we’ll know long before then what’s in store for the site. Watch this space.
Anniversaries made the headlines – it was 26 years ago that nine-year-old playmates Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows were strangled in the city’s Wild Park. No one has been brought to justice and each October the girls’ families hold a vigil in the park, close to where they lived.
It was 25 years ago that the city was hit by the Great Gale which ripped off roofs, tore down hundreds of trees, flattened mobile homes and sent a minaret through the roof of the Music Room at the Royal Pavilion, crashing through a newly-laid hand-woven luxury carpet.
Police are warning cyclists to be on their guard against thieves who are rounding up bikes at rail stations, loading them into vans and selling them around the country and even abroad. British Transport Police issued photos of suspects: The man in image 4 is suspected of stealing a bicycle and bike lock from Brighton rail station; image 7 shows another man suspected of taking a bicycle secured to racks at the rear of Brighton station; and the couple in image 5 are suspected of stealing a cycle at Preston Park station.
There was sad news – the passing of one of the nicest and most skillful health bosses in Sussex. Alan Randall, 66, spent his career in the NHS as a manager and chief executive and worked for Brighton Health Authority before heading the trust for Worthing and Southlands hospitals. His final posting was in Eastbourne before retiring and becoming founder-director of Yellowave on Brighton seafront. His daughter Katie and her husband Spencer Mintram run the venue in Madeira Drive. Mr Randall and other traders campaigned to reduce large increases in parking charges there and for an arts and sculpture trail. Mr Randall, who died suddenly at his Shoreham home, leaves his wife Sue, son Ian, daughter Katie and two stepsons, Matt and Dan.
Latest 7 reader Jane Eaton, from Preston Park, emailed to complain about supermarket delivery drivers: “There’s more of them on our roads and they seem to stop wherever they like; blocking entire lines of traffic and driveways. And while I’m at it, big lorries delivering to Sainsbury’s Local in Carden Avenue make life impossible for drivers trying to get by them during the morning rush hour. What were the planners thinking of when they approved the store?” What do you think? Email: comment@thelatest.co.uk
Police praised the conduct of demonstrators protesting in Brighton against the outlawing of squatting while the MP who led the campaign for its introduction, Mike Weatherley, warned people prior to the march to be on guard against the “anarchists” with “no respect for other people’s property and exhibit utter contempt for our laws”.
Whole streets in the city are being spruced up: the council’s planning enforcement team say owners are responding positively to requests to improve their buildings, but gulls apparently are spoiling the show – the council wants to stop the birds scattering rubbish from bin liners by introducing more communal bins in the Hanover area and streets bounded by The Level, Lewes Road and Upper Lewes Road. Residents will be consulted. Some people aren’t bothered about the gulls’ mess – but others are spitting feathers.
