Former Bognor seafront restaurant Brewers Fayre could be converted into public meeting place

During a meeting of the economy committee on Monday (June 19), members debated the possible future of the former Brewer’s Fayre site, on the Esplanade, which has been handed back to the council by hotel firm Whitbread.

While officers recommended letting the building, saying it was the ‘best value option’, seven of the 11 committee members disagreed.

Despite being warned of costs potentially running into the millions, Lib Dem, Green and Labour members seemed determined to turn back the clock on the site and revive its Royal Hall status of the 1980s/90s.

Dr James Walsh (Lib Dem, Brookfield) said: “Bognor Regis at the moment lacks an exhibition hall, it lacks conference facilities and it lacks a large space for community events.

“The Royal Hall was always intended to provide those.

“I think it would be good to include that in a review of what could be provided there and at what cost and what time-frame.”

The council holds the freehold on the site and acquired the leasehold from Whitbread as part of the development of the Alexandra Theatre.

The plan had been for Whitbread to sub-lease for two years but the meeting was told the firm dropped out ‘at almost the last minute’, leaving the council to take vacant possession of the site.

In the meantime, councillors had supported the idea of including the site in the future development of the Regis car park, with designs and feasibility studies already commissioned.

Such a development would see the restaurant demolished in five years’ time.

But should the council opt for the ‘Royal Hall’ approach, that would not happen.

Neil Taylor, regeneration consultant, said: “We’ll do the feasibility [and] bring it back to members, but if members want to go down that route of the Royal Hall you will be de facto accepting that that building’s going to stay and it won’t be part of a wider regeneration of the full site.”

Mr Taylor acknowledged that the £1m cost quoted in the report to convert the restaurant into a public meeting space was only a ‘guesstimate’.

He said it could easily be much more as everything from the electrics to the roof to the heating system needed to be repaired or replaced.

While the Royal Hall was mentioned again and again during the meeting, it appeared nowhere in the officer’s report to the committee.

Conservative leader Shaun Gunner (Con, Rustington East) accused the other groups of holding a ‘secret meeting’, ‘cooking up a plan’, and trying to ‘close down debate’.

Mr Gunner said the whole Royal Hall idea had been ‘ambushed on this meeting following your secret discussion with the other groups that the Conservatives were excluded from’.

He added: “We’re being asked to vote for an option that’s has got no costings, no time-frames, and has had no work done on it whatsoever.”

Committee chairman Roger Nash (Lab, Pevensey) said he absolutely refuted Mr Gunner’s claim that taking the Royal Hall route would ‘kill off regeneration on that site’.

Officers were asked to meet with Arun Arts to discuss the organisation taking over the site in the short-term – an option it had previously turned down.