Hotel road closure impacting on city businesses

Traders in Brighton say their businesses have been affected by the closure of a seafront road due to safety fears over a nearby building.

The A259 Grand Junction Road closed in both directions on Friday between the aquarium and beyond East Street due to concerns from engineers that the Royal Albion Hotel and its scaffolding were "at risk of catastrophic failure".

Brighton & Hove City Council said it had instructed Britannia Hotels, the owners, to carry out risk assessments and make the structure safe.

Britannia Hotels has been contacted for comment.

The hotel was partially destroyed by a fire in July 2023, which was believed to have been caused by a discarded cigarette.

Diversions in place around the closure were causing traffic to build elsewhere in the city, with residents saying it was "horrendous" and warning "don't bother going into Brighton unless you really need to".

Seb Cole, owner of Boho Gelato, said there had been a lot of "head in hands" moments for his business since the fire.

He acknowledged that the future of the now-boarded up site was no doubt a "very complicated situation".

He added: "It's very sad to see a building like that go, but at the end of the day if that's going to take five years, ten years of bureaucracy to do, perhaps it's time to bite the bullet, tear it down and build a nice garden there."

Ellen Davoudi-Meredith, manager at Trading Post, a coffee shop in Ship Street, said late deliveries because of congestion on the roads were impacting the business.

"It means that we have a lot more stress on every shift because we have to work around the fact that we won't have our delivery until after we open which means we'll be out of things to serve people," she told BBC Radio Sussex.

David Roy, owner of Petit Pois restaurant, said customers ended up being late for reservations, taking time out of their two-hour table allocation, or ended up cancelling because they could not get there.

He said: "It's a bit of a rush. Everybody's stressed. It's not the best experience.

"We don't want that for the customers."

Organisers of the Brighton Half Marathon, which would normally go down the part of the road that is currently closed, said they were working closely with the council and would update runners if the course route was impacted.

Councillor Trevor Muten, the council's cabinet member for transport, parking and public realm, apologised for disruption caused by the closure.

He added: "We have also impressed upon Britannia that they need to move at pace, resolve this and we need to open this road as soon as possible."

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