Visions of Bexhill's future on display

A public exhibition by international designers has quickly aroused both controversy and interest.

The Bexhill Future exhibition has been hailed as the single most important Bexhill architectural competition since the one which led to the building of the De La Warr Pavilion in the 1930s.

Rother council leader Graham Gubby talked of "the dawn of a new era." But the design brief dictates that the key feature - a 60-bed hotel together with shops, offices and apartments - should be on the putting green next to the pavilion.

Rother cabinet member Cllr Peter Fairhurst, while welcoming regeneration, this week made an impassioned plea to planners not to saddle the town with a "white elephant."

The exhibition opened last weekend when, despite gale force conditions, more than 300 people visited the temporary offices at 29-31 Marina. It will remain open today and tomorrow from 10am until 4pm.

Visitors can see ideas in plan and model form submitted by the three leading architectural practices which are competing to design the Masterplan for the Bexhill of the future.

People are being invited to fill in questionnaires indicating which of the options they prefer.

The key element of the brief to which the short-listed practices have responded is to design a new landmark seafront development for Bexhill.

Controversially, the brief dictated that this development was to be on the Metropole putting green site.