ADAM TRIMINGHAM

ABATTLE between the hard-nosed North and the soft-sounding South is being fought in the genteel surrounding of Brighton Town Hall this week about the future of the best known pier in Britain.

The Noble Organisation, based in the North East, believes that the fairground rides on the head of the Palace Pier are an integral part of its attraction for many of the four million visitors promenading there each year.

Brighton and Hove Council doesn't like the position in which some of them have been placed.

Talks and negotiations stretching over many months and even years have failed to resolve this position, resulting in an inquiry which neither side wants and which could prove expensive for the losers.

But money is at stake for the owners and prestige for the council.

The irony is that almost everyone in Brighton agrees that Noble has done wonders for the pier, which was in danger of slowly sinking into the sea before it was bought 15 years ago.

It has been renovated and opened for far longer with the result that it is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the land.

But there has been a simmering feud for many years going back to an event which occurred in 1973. This was when a barge moored to the landing stage broke lose during a gale and severely damaged the pier head, particularly the delightful theatre on the end.

The theatre partly collapsed and was never used again. It was demolished in 1986, but with the expectation that it would be replaced eventually by the new structure in traditional style, providing space for both traditional theatre and more modern amusements.

That building has never been produced, a sore point with the council which takes seriously its role as planning guardian of the historic pier, now nearly a century old and a Grade II* listed building to boot. It has undoubtedly infected the current argument over the rides.

Ideally it would be lovely if the theatre could be rebuilt, but the cost would be around £9 million and most punters can understand why Noble might be reluctant to spend that sum even if the company was allowed to put up a new shore line building of the kind common on almost every other pier in the country.

Some of the rides are ugly but Noble claims that they have to be visible so that people are attracted on to the pier.

Despite that, it is the beauty of the pier's oriental outline which still catches the eye rather than the stark modernity of the roller coaster.

Piers have to be profitable as the sad saga of the West Pier in the same town proved during the Seventies. Noble has had a rough, tough approach to planning which has impinged on southern sensibilities about conservation.

I'm not sure how far the rides are vital to the health of Noble which seems to make most of its money from the game machines inside the arcades.

But if the choice is between a lively pier with a few blemishes and a perfect pier heading slowly towards a watery grave, I know which one I would take.

YEARS ago, some bright birds managed to do creditable imitations of Trimphones. Now things have moved on. The other day in Preston Road, Brighton, I heard the sound of a mobile phone and realised that it had come from a nearby blackbird.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.