Changes always needed to meet new demands

The city itself isn’t just a collection of homes, businesses and universities (although at times you could be forgiven for thinking that). Every city needs a strong infrastructure in order to be able to deliver the services, connections and supporting services.

To meet the growing needs of the city, whether that is new offices, new homes, new businesses or more education, we as a city also need to make sure that our infrastructure expands and develops to meet the new demands placed on it.

The road network that suited Brighton, Hove and Portslade in 1999 would simply not be suitable for 2019 and beyond.

Similarly we need ongoing improvements to our schools, utilities, police, fire, ambulance, NHS and a wealth of other institutions and services.

A development of even a few hundred homes will often mean more GP appointments, more school places, improved transport links, better leisure facilities being required to balance the effect of the extra people building their lives in our city. And these sorts of developments collectively over years place greater demands on the basic public services and utilities .

Many of us will remember the massive impact of the delivery of the Peacehaven Waste Water Treatment works. The works have improved significantly the capacity of the city’s waste water management but also the quality of that treatment too. We have all benefited from these improvements and will continue to for decades. However at the time these were highly controversial and caused some notable disruption.

Across recent years the same is true of the Valley Gardens scheme. No-one has yet argued that there is no change required to meet the increasingly complex transport and public space requirements of the city, but I hope that in ten years’ time we can look back at an improvement delivered and an overall successful scheme.

Cllr Dan Yates is the Leader of the Labour Group on Brighton & Hove City Council