Councillors are being asked to support a Conservation Plan which aims to improve the Royal Pavilion Garden and get it removed from the Heritage at Risk Register.
Members of the Tourism, Development and Culture Committee are also being asked to approve spending £25,000 to re-submit a Round 1 Heritage Lottery bid in March.
The Grade 11 listed Royal Pavilion Garden was added to the Historic England at Risk Register last year following concerns about high levels of visitor use, erosion of character and a general deterioration in the sense of history. Historic England called for a Conservation Plan to be developed to address issues as a matter of urgency.
A plan was drawn up, a consultation launched, attracting more than 1,300 responses, and a bid submitted for £194,000 to develop the plans ready for a funding bid for £3.3 million.
Unfortunately, the bid was unsuccessful.
However, the Heritage Lottery Fund encouraged the council to re-submit, highlighting work that should be undertaken in the meantime. This includes:
- Carrying out an access audit
- Developing designs of what a new boundary and improved entrances might look like
- Providing evidence of how multi agency working will tackle anti-social behaviour
- Providing more details of an activity programme, interpretation strategy and volunteer roles and skills.
The estimated cost of this work is £25,000 which would be met from the Royal Pavilion and Museums core budgets.