Brighton Centre: Not easy to love

The Brighton Centre is not the easiest building to love.

Its style is regarded as brutalist by some. And a consensus grew that it had passed its sell-by date. Plans to replace it have come and gone for years. In the absence of a major redevelopment, linking it to Churchill Square, it was given a makeover a few years agoto extend its useful life.

The council has been in painfully-slow talks with Standard Life Investments. The latter owns Churchill Square and the Kingswest complex, which have similar architectural merits. The aim is to unify all three sites to create a major retail centre. There are a number of sticking points. They include car-parking capacity, whether the conference trade could be kept close to key hotels and what level of competition would be permitted nearby.

The credit crunch prolonged the wait for viable plans. And those plans were always likely to involve building up in places as well as joining up the parts. Even modest plans take time. No matter how many storeys, this plot will run for some years yet.