COUNCIL PLANNING APPLICATION FOR KING ALFRED SITE

Click to view the Council's planning application in full.  

Redevelopment of western part of existing leisure centre and public car park to provide new leisure centre (F2 use) to include: swimming pools, sports hall, gym/fitness suite, childrens soft play, event spaces, cafe and undercroft car park accessed from Hove Street. Associated hard and soft landscaping, public realm works and highway infrastructure. Relocation of existing seafront shelter. Provision of temporary public car park on part of lawn to west of Hove Street during construction (2 years). 

Do visit their comments section - and have your say! 

Council proposal - their visuals

Below are five images taken directly from the Council's own supporting documents for their planning application. They are grim. The proposed building looks more like a long-term storage facility than a prestigious leisure centre and takes zero advantage of the site's premier seafront location. Nor has there been any effort to provide a pleasant aspect from Kingsway. 

Click each image to go direct to the "supporting document" PDFs on the Council's planning application.   

Our 3D representation of planned high-rise flats

The Council plans to fund the new King Alfred development by demolishing the existing King Alfred building and selling the land for development as high-rise flats. The Council has committed to more than 400+ flats (at the bare minimum.) 

Below is our 3D representation of what this might look like based on the Council's design and access satement footprint design.  

Below is the Council's visualisation of the east side of the proposed new King Alfred. Although this looks very attractive, we do not believe this is a true representation of how it will look. This area - which they are dubbing the "public plaza" - will be fully overshadowed by the residential flats that will be constructed on this side of the new leisure centre. 

These flats will comprise at least 400+ units and be at least 8-10 storeys high. This area will get very little sun and mainly in the mornings. This visual, showing an expansive and fully sunlit area, is wholly unrealistic.  Sun tracker apps demonstrate this area will get about three to five hours a day of direct sunlight once it is overshadowed by high-rise flats on the east side and a higher King Alfred building to the west. 

It's worth noting that the "plaza" will be bordered by a building site for 2- 3 years while the flats are being built.

Below is the Council's visualisation of the seafront side of the proposed new King Alfred.  There has been zero attempt to maximise the potential of a premier seafront/promenade location - a severely wasted opportunity. We only need to look at the success of ventures such as Rockwater and Babble Hove to see how well other outlets have leveraged their seafront location.