Plans for a futuristic £2 million eight-storey tower with sweeping curves and modern balconies on Rottingdean's sleepy seafront have outraged locals.

A petition of 3,000 signatures demanding the plan for 14 luxury sea-view homes is thrown out was handed to Brighton and Hove City Council last night.

Retired businessman Harold Williams, who is planning to sell his cottage in Marine Drive to make way for the tower, has quit his new post on the parish council and Rottingdean Preservation Society because of the uproar.

Villagers have united against what has become know as The Rottingdean Blot, forming a protest group called the Whitecliffs Action Group (WAG), led by Skint Records DJ Andrew Mckirdy, whose mother lives close to the proposed tower.

Brighton and Hove's architecture panel, which makes recommendations about major buildings, has already given it the nod of approval.

The full application is to be discussed in the next few weeks.

In his resignation letter to the council, Mr Williams said he believed the development on the site of his £700,000 property would be good for the village.

He said: "My personal aspiration for the village is to see modern, well-designed buildings south of the main coast road, which would contrast and complement the old with the new."

Alan Phillips, the Brighton-based architect who drew up the plans for the circular tower, said he believed his design would improve Rottingdean.

He said: "The block would be an immense improvement to that part of Rottingdean.

"It is next to two other blocks of flats on the seafront which have not got a long shelf life. Sooner or later the other two blocks, which are often surrounded in scaffolding, will have to come down.

"Three beautiful blocks of flats looking out to sea would enhance Rottingdean and regenerate the eastern gateway to Brighton and Hove."

Wednesday July 23, 2003