On the up with the Albion

FOOTBALL can too often be used as a metaphor for life. But Albion's phoenix-like rise from the dark and desperate days of Archer and Bellotti and the beckoning fate of non-league football is the stuff of miracles. More importantly it comes at a time when the great new fledgling city needs to seek out its future.

For me, the Albion's revival should be seen as part of Brighton and Hove's renaissance. The two are linked. They express a growing self-confidence and belief evident in our city. People's views of what makes a city vary over time. But the Albion's winning promotion and the Third Division championship being very much in sight combine to tell me that the city is moving on up.

But just as Martin Perry, Dick Knight and Micky Adams are the football visionaries who made it happen for the Albion, the city leaders politically have to show vision and leadership off the pitch. Three key projects beckon as part of that vision for where we need to be with the new city as it takes the next generation into the future.

With promotion in the bag, the interest in the Albion among the investors in Brighton and Hove and the Albion will grow. We need to grasp that opportunity. The Albion's stadium has to become a reality to keep a pace of the club's needs.

Des Lynam was right to urge the importance of the need for a political decision, even if he was a touch unfair on the council.

The new leader of the city must make sure that when the Albion publish their plans, the council embraces the principle of continued partnership early while, of course, following the right planning procedures. A successful club in a new city stadium at Falmer is the right course and an important part of the city's vision of itself as successful and forward looking.

The job-creating potential of the stadium is unique. It could easily create 1,000 new jobs right where they are needed most. Over the past couple of years as minister I have visited some of the best new stadia around the country. I have seen the transformation a successful stadium can make.

When I met Middlesbrough officials they showed me their complex where they have built into the stadium an education and training centre. They are working with the local authority to help fight alienation and racism among young people and use football as a force for good. They have minimal problems with hooliganism as a consequence.

So I argue that getting the council behind the club in partnership can strengthen the local economy, secure social inclusion and add to the sense of a city on the move.

The other challenge for the new city leader is The Brighton Centre. My message is be bold, go for something that keeps the city in the premier league of conferencing venues. Bring in private capital to enlarge and renew the centre, make its redesign something to be proud of architecturally. To keep ahead in the conferencing premier league, the venue will need to double in capacity to 10,000 and use this as part of the argument to seek a solution to seafront transport problems.

The attractiveness of Brighton as a conference city for all shapes and sizes of conference is legendary. But to maintain its edge we need to develop a conference venue, like a football stadium, that fits our dreams for the future.

The party political conferences will grow in size. Labour's conference is already the largest political 'festival' in Europe with a fringe programme which rivals in political terms the fringe events at cultural festivals.

The third great challenge for the new city leader is linked to both the stadium and Brighton Centre transport conundrums. As the city has become more successful so it had become more congested. The bold moves made with the buses nearly a decade ago have meant that more people now use them than ever before.

We need to be bold again. So why not have a seafront tramlink from Shoreham to the marina and beyond? Link it to the bus and railway networks and the city has a people-moving solution to two of the biggest jobs generators we are likely to develop. But a tramlink system utilising the seafront and linked to the stations is perhaps the next bold measure to take.

If it happened in Croydon, it could happen here. Of course Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company is also part of a rail network company - a consortium could make it work and give us an integrated system for the city.

The need to renew The Brighton Centre and the stadium development could be the catalyst that makes it work.

The seafront has lacked a coherent public transport service for a long time. A unifying tramlink has tremendous potential, especially as we move to a time when the seafront is part of the city success story.

With The Brighton Centre redeveloped, the West Pier and seafront developments moving apace and the prospect of Black Rock being unlocked together with all that's growing at the marina, then a tramlink, building on Magnus Volks's original idea looks a winner.

What we now need is to tap into the enthusiasm that has created success on and off the field and Brighton and Hove will be known as the city that, like its football club, moved towards the premier league - the place where it should rightly be.