A multi-million pound Olympic skating arena will be up and running in Brighton in four years.

Developers have pledged to build the seafront palace of wood and glass by 2007 and say its first full year of operation will be 2008.

The scheme was approved in principle last night when Brighton and Hove city councillors chose this design to transform a site left derelict since 1978.

The city policy committee decided Brighton International Arena (BIA) was its preferred developer for the Black Rock swimming pool site at the eastern end of Madeira Drive.

Olympic stars Jayne Torvill and Robin Cousins are among those behind the project, which will bring back the glory days of ice to the city 40 years after the demolition of the old Sports Stadium in West Street.

The scheme was selected in preference to an alternative for an international hotel and spa submitted by the RH Partnership and Sir Rocco Forte.

Now council officials will work with developers on the scheme before a planning application is submitted.

The multi-purpose arena, capable of seating up to 11,500 people, will include two Olympic-sized ice pads.

It will be able to stage European ice hockey tournaments, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and other sports such as tennis and basketball. There will also be a low-rise block of 64 flats and 40 per cent of them will be affordable.

The council and BIA will have to overcome concerns about how the scheme will fit in with a nearby high-grade conservation area and how transport access to the site will be arranged.

Mr Cousins, a BIA director, was delighted with the decision and added BIA was already working on all the concerns which had been raised.

He said: "We are all very much looking forward to this going ahead and bringing back the Brighton Tigers."

Brighton Kemp Town Labour MP Des Turner said: "This will be fantastic for the young and young at heart.

"It is important the proposals do not have a negative impact on the historic Kemp Town seafront, so I am particularly pleased the roofline will be planted and will be below the cliffs.

"The council will need to continue pushing for planning agreements with the developer giving first-class transport links along the seafront from the marina into the city."

But Derek Granger, of the Kemp Town Society, said the council had ignored its own planning brief for the site, which had mentioned a hotel.

He said the society would see if a legal challenge could be mounted to the decision.

Professor Stephen Adutt, from the RH Partnership, said the hotel and spa scheme with adjoining winter garden would still be a possibility if negotiations with BIA failed.

He said the council's report had favoured BIA and even before its evaluation, the authority had been in favour of an ice arena.

A report to councillors said the ice arena would attract two million visits a year and would increase tourism spending in the city by £4.36 million a year.

The arena could create about 500 jobs during construction and almost 300 once it was up and running within four years.

Rottingdean coastal Tory councillor David Smith, who will have the arena in his ward, welcomed the project.

He said there would be concerns about transport but big events in the arena would tend to take place in the evenings when there would be less conflict with other traffic.

Thursday October 23, 2003