Brighton pub gets permission to restore historic green tiles
Some were removed from the building in a previous housing dispute
Restoration plans for a pub’s green tiles were approved by councillors without discussion.
A planning application by developer Charlie Southall for the locally listed Montreal Arms, in Albion Hill, Brighton, included replacing the tiled front, raising the roof height and partly demolishing and rebuilding ground-floor and first-floor extensions.
Councillors indicated that they would disuss the application when Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee met at Hove Town Hall this afternoon (Wednesday 5 June).
But three and a half hours into the meeting, with three items left to discuss, they agreed to approve the appliaction in line with the advice of officials.
The council received seven objections to the plans. Objectors were concerned about the effect of the proposals on the locally listed building and the increased roof height.
Mr Southall, 45, said that the historic tiles, damaged in 2022, would be scanned by specialists at Craven Dunnill and replaced with hand-glazed replicas in the Victorian style with “crazying” glaze.
The council has imposed conditions requiring Mr Southall to provide samples of all the new tiles to compare with the historic tiles, including those with lettering.
Many of the original tiles were lost in March 2022 when Mr Southall hired friends to remove them.
At the time he had been in a dispute with neighbours over his plans to turn the building into housing.
But the council’s planning policies require a pub owner to market the business for two years before premitting any change of use for the building such as turning it into housing.
Since then, the pub has been registered as an asset of community value. Mr Southall also faced stop action and an enforcement notice to restore the green tiles.
The application said that many of the tiles were already seriously damaged before they were removed to enable structural issues with the building to be dealt with.