⛱Lidos, larceny, lots of pub-related stories and more🍻

Good morning everyone, and welcome to our Monday update. Sun's done for the time being, this week it's nothing but rain and we all lost an hour of sleep yesterday but you know what: the plants need the rain and clocks forward means lighter evenings. The Seagull always tries to look on the Bright(on) side.

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Restoration project commences at Saltdean Lido

Restoration works have started at Saltdean Lido to restore it to its former 1930s art deco glory.

The £7.5million project, funded by the Heritage Fund, Historic England and Brighton & Hove City Council, aims to restore the Grade II* listed building by summer 2023.

Saltdean Lido, one of three Grade II* listed lidos in the country, will have a poolside café, library, Art Deco ballroom, exercise studio, shared workspace facilities, community rooms, and a heritage and learning space to tell the story of the Lido's social history.

The Saltdean Lido Community Interest Company (CIC) said:

The end result will be a beautifully restored seaside attraction which celebrates the golden age of lido movement and is accessible for the public to enjoy.

It’s taken 11 years of hard work from dedicated volunteers to get to this point, and we look forward  to keeping you updated as the restoration unfolds.

It is thanks to the work of the Saltdean Lido CIC and the community that the funds were secured and the restoration project is going ahead. We look forward to making a trip down the road to see the completed works soon!

You can follow the progress on Saltdean Lido’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Thieves steal more than £1,000 from community workshop in Kemptown

Approximately £1,000 in tools were stolen from a community workshop after thieves broke into the basement of a church.

Brighton Community Workshop Project (BCWP), which is based in St. George's Church in Kemptown, was broken into on Friday, March 25. At least £115 in cash was also stolen, as well as a brand-new pillar drill that was still in the box it came in.

The project commented:

It is our understanding the thieves were disturbed and fled, leaving items they had prepared to steal in the stairwell of the Community Centre.

Luckily nobody was hurt or injured in the process. We have insurance and we have been in contact with the police. We doubt they will be able to do very much and although our insurance may pay towards replacing some of the items it will not replace the trust that has been lost.

The most important thing for us now would be for those of you that support us, but have not yet become a member, to please take this opportunity to join us - as we really do need to raise funds.

Our Tenancy at St Georges ends on 6th May, so we need to vacate by then and  require funds to make the transition to a new premises.

We will set up an Urgent Appeal fund to replace what we have lost and to allow you to show us the support we know you want to give us.

The project works to repurpose old tools and enables members of the community to share what they have with each other, cutting down on waste and skillsharing in the process. Friend of The Seagull and BCWP volunteer Tristram wrote about why that matters so much here.

To join the project, click here, and to donate, click here.

🖋 NIBS 🖋

• Soho House's late night licensing request has been rejected by the council. It will have to stop serving alcohol at 1am (instead of the hoped for 1.45am) with closing at 2am. Police raised concerns, saying 'Most incidents … have an element of alcohol linked to them. This is a mix of persons becoming drunk and disorderly, violent and a high number of incidents involve persons who have become a victim of crime due to their own vulnerability after consuming alcohol.'
• A ramp is being installed in Saltdean to give more disabled people access to the beach. It will be near the underpass in front of Saltdean Lido, and the council plans for it to be ready to use by the summer.
• Charlie Southall, the man who wanted to turn the Montreal Arms into housing for Ukrainians and held a slightly disastrous community meeting about it (see last week's Seagull), has gone back on it all via the medium of a Facebook video in the Hanover Community Notice Board group. It's gone down about as well as the fundraiser for the £85,000 worth of building work did.
• Six trees planted by volunteers in Wish Park this month are looking for sponsors. Two are sponsored by local youth football team Poets Corner Juniors— email [email protected] for more details.
• More than 150 people have volunteered to take in Ukrainian refugees across the city, but the council has raised concerns around timings and practicalities of carrying out checks. Issues around an 'overworked' DBS system, a lack of guidance from the government, and ongoing safeguarding were all raised at the Policy and Resources Committee meeting on Thursday, March 24.

This edition of The Seagull is sponsored by Cybersyn, a friendly digital analytics consultancy based right here in Brighton. ‌

What happened? Three pubs in the city owned by City Pubs have been sold for £16.2million.

Which pubs? Brighton Beach Club, The Walrus and The Lion and Lobster.

Why is this big? You might remember City Pubs came under fire in December, when it made a member of staff go into work despite having a fever, cough, and a fellow staff member testing positive for Covid. She (rightly) ordered a PCR test and told management she was going to isolate until it came back, and they said doing so didn’t line up with “Company policy” and that she had to work the shift.

Yikes. Yeah. City Pub Group said in response that it was going to investigate the allegations, but there are no updates on that as of yet.

A former staff member at City Pubs commented:

From my experience at City Pubs, it comes as welcome news that they’re removing themselves from the Brighton hospitality scene following years of ethically questionable management and repeated failure to act from their HQ.

I hope the new company Portobello will take these pubs on and support a positive working culture and promote the wellbeing of not just staff but of customers too who are affected by poor management.

We do hope the new owners don't follow the working practices of The Walrus' management.

🎵Gigs: Open Mike Eagle, art rap from LA, he's got a song called I'm A Joestar, come along to this and you might see our technical director; Friday 1st April at The Hope And Ruin, tickets here.

🎥Cinema: A Hard Day's Night, if you enjoyed The Beatles: Get Back, this isn't really much like that; Thursday 31st March at The Duke of York's, tickets here.

🖼Exhibitions: Down from London: Spencer Gore & Friends, colourful Post-Impressionism from the Camden Town Group, opened this weekend; until 11 September 2022, free with museum admission.

Swoop in

If you have a story for Seagull, please get in touch with our editor at [email protected]. And if you want to contribute:‌‌‌

☕️ Where to eat? 🥪

Brunch: Cafe Rust has three locations across the city but our favourite is the one in George Street with its delightful sun terrace. Their tofu scramble has the most incredible consistency, accompanied nicely with a dirty chai.

Dinner: Kokedama on East Street—ok this one can't be a recommendation from direct experience as it's not open yet, but we went when it was a pop-up in Lewes and it was absolutely wonderful, so we have every confidence that this latest from the Roundhill team will be just as good. Opens on April 1st, do yourself a favour and make a reservation for your next significant life event (warning, pricey).

Dinner: The Bee's Mouth on Western Road is artfully decorated with a variety of tat and coloured lights, making it the kind of place that people mean when they say somewhere is "very Brighton". Every individual interior space is quite snug but the further back in its winding corridors the more spaces you find; even trips to the loo feel like a bit of an adventure.

🔜 Next Time 🔜

That's all for this week—don't forget to fill in our contributors form if you'd like to get involved, forward to friends who might be interested and if you've been forwarded this and enjoyed it (or are reading on the website), please subscribe.‌‌