THE first stage of the £18 million revamp of Brighton’s city centre will not be completed until the end of 2019 – more than two years later than first proposed.

Despite an 18 month review of the Valley Gardens scheme, the design has not been significantly altered according to council officers’ own assessment.

New modelling of the scheme predicts car journeys will increase by two seconds on average and bus journeys by 21 seconds.

Transport committee chairwoman Gill Mitchell said the Labour administration had taken the “responsible” decision to halt the scheme for up-to-date traffic modelling not carried out under the Greens.

Committee members are set to give the thumbs up for the preliminary highway design next Tuesday allowing council officers to draw up detailed highway technical designs throughout 2017.

Construction work will begin in February 2018 having been pushed back to avoid clashing with Southern Water roadworks in North Street starting this spring.

Valley Garden proposals were first unveiled by the Green administration in 2012 with the first stage completed by summer 2017 until the incoming Labour administration called a review in May 2015.

Designs for the gardens are likely to be simplified under the new plans because the scheme has no provision for maintenance and the council’s parks budget is facing heavy cuts.

The park's design will be reconsidered once the highway layout has been agreed and will explore options to retain the 80-year-old Mazda Fountain.

No business plan or detailed designs have been drawn up yet for the final phase at the Aquarium Roundabout which has £6 million of Coast to Capital funding earmarked.

Cllr Mitchell said modifications had increased road space for private cars with some additional north and southbound two-lane sections and a new segregated cycle lane.

Modelling of the scheme indicates that journey times for half of the eight major routes through the Valley Gardens area will increase but the other half could reduce.

Cllr Mitchell said lessons had been learned from the Lewes Road scheme, which has seen hundreds of thousands of cars diverted to other roads, with new modelling highlighting where traffic might build up.

She said: “We had serious misgivings about the previous design, we had not seen modelling evidence that it worked throughout.

“The previous proposals for the park were very beautiful but very, very complex and the Green administration had not left a single penny for the maintenance of what is a new city park.”

“Our primary focus has been on the highway and making sure it works, the gardens won’t be very beautiful if all the roads are gummed up.”

Philip Wells, from the London Road Action Team, said he welcomed the benefits the scheme would bring to the “underused, unpleasant and confusing” Valley Gardens.

He added: “It is frustrating that that a scheme which originally had cross party support has had this delay but if it’s necessary to ensure that the traffic flows properly then I can understand that.”