The key aims of the scheme are to improve the southern station entrance around Queens Road and create a high quality northern entrance, and you have until 9 December to return the survey or join the consultation on the council’s website, under Travel & Transport, Brighton Station Gateway proposals.
The West Hill Road Street Party on 29 April 2011 was a masterclass of organisation and bonhomie. Step forward the organisers to take a bow: Alexa de Castillo, Jake Smith, Joelle, Manuel Tavarez who made THE cake (see pictures opposite), Daniel Bernstein & Charlotte, Dan Karen, Tui Davenport, Sarah and Will Baker, Julian Musto, Anton, and Ellen Laverty. They and others receive the heart-felt thanks of all those who attended from West Hill Road, West Hill Street and some other nearby roads. It was a great day and the rain came just at the end when it was time to clear and pack up. Yes, there’s nothing these guys can’t organise!
WHCA was represented at the Brighton Station Gateway project design meeting in May, along with representatives from Network Rail, Southern Railway, the council, Queen’s Road traders, taxi and bus companies, the disabled, cyclists, pedestrians, residents and more. Many ideas were put forward, including making the southern approach to Terminus Road accessible only to public transport and residents to allow taxis to queue up the road; closing Trafalgar Street to cars under the bridge to allow it to be widened to create more space in front of the station; locating the bus stops in Surrey Street, moving buses from the south entrance to create clear views of the sea. Some ideas were dropped – including the ones just mentioned – and others will go forward for review, design and feasibility studies before being put out for public consultation later in the year.
It’s a major project and will have a huge effect on the West Hill area and Queen’s Road. Have your say when consultation begins.
Aung San Suu Kyi, this year’s Brighton Festival guest director, sends a message to the festival:
“We all think about the Brighton Festival as an occasion for festivities, for diversity, for creativity, for expression, for freedom of expression. This is especially important to us in Burma, who have been deprived of this right of freedom for very many years. We look to you to use your freedom of expression to let the world know what it is like in our country.
There is connection between all kinds of expression and because everything is connected we think that what you do there, half way across the world from us, can help us here a great deal.”
Last year The Whistler wrote about the Burmese comic Zarganar who has been jailed by the military junta for 35 years. This May, Brighton & Hove comes alive with a powerful and exciting programme of cultural events in celebration of this year’s Guest Director, Aung San Suu Kyi, the courageous Burmese leader, human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has fought peacefully for democracy and, taken to the heart of this year’s Festival, is her message, “use your liberty to promote ours”. West Hill Hall is a Festival Fringe venue and has been used as a rehearsal space for festival shows.
Structural changes are in the news too – the long running campaign to save the Royal Alexandra Hospital buildings has been won. Taylor Wimpey responded to the majority of local feeling and withdrew the demolition option prior to the Council planning committee meeting. The plan to convert and restore the main building was unanimously approved. The Brighton Station gateway project is looking at ways to improve access and facilities at the station and the only way that a great scheme can be developed is with the input and ideas of users of the area. Let us know your views so we can feed them into the planning process.
The Annual General Meeting of the West Hill Community Association, at which the accounts will be adopted and the officers and committee elected, will be held on Tuesday 31 May 2011 at the West Hill Hall. Nominations for the committee must be seconded and sent with the written consent of the nominee to the Hall. The business of the meeting will be followed by our perennial favourite, the Quiz, set and presented by David Perrett. Refreshments and bonhomie free. All welcome.
The Whistler 