The sorry tale of the Women’s Bowls Pavilion in Preston Park       

The former women’s bowls pavilion building in Preston Park has been sadly disfigured over recent years and important planning issues remain unresolved after over five years.

Parts of this article appeared in our website five years ago and we thought it was time to highlight the planning issues in our newsletter.

The pavilion, designed by the renowned Superintendent of Parks, Captain Bertie Maclaren, was a very attractive building with open verandas on three sides and formed an essential part of the Grade II Listed Preston Park.

Despite objections from the Brighton Society and the Conservation Advisory Group (CAG) permission was granted for various significant alterations to the Maclaren design. Without obtaining permission, the tenants of the pavilion then made further alterations which seriously disfigured it.

The Brighton Society and others submitted a complaint to Planning Enforcement drawing attention to the harm done to this registered heritage asset by these unauthorised works. After considerable delay, the council issued an Enforcement Notice in May 2023 which gave the tenant until July 2024 to remove the harmful alterations.

However, since that time little satisfactory reinstatement work has been carried out:

• Timber framed windows and doors to match positions and size of the original north and south elevations have not been installed

• The UPVC window has not been removed

• The low brick walls along the north and south elevations have not been reinstated.

The CAG has spent many hours trying to resolve these issues with the planning staff over the last two years. However, unbelievably, it received an email from the enforcement officer last November saying that she had visited the bowls pavilion and had inspected the finished works which, in her opinion, had now been carried out as per the Enforcement Notice. There were now no planning breaches, and the case was closed.

Just have a look at the latest photo of the elevation – no windows to match the originals, no replica veranda posts and no low brick wall supporting the posts.  What do we have? A whitewashed wall with a cheap UPVC casement window.  No effort whatsoever to replicate the appearance of the original pavilion and no works carried out to comply with the Enforcement Notice. To say that the enforcement works have been carried out to a satisfactory standard is clearly nonsense. The CAG continues its efforts to get the council to take this case seriously. And we have to wonder why planning enforce-ment in Brighton is now in such a parlous state.