Revamp planned for Brighton cricket pavilion

A Brighton cricket club wants to add a balcony to its pavilion, modernise its changing rooms and make its clubhouse accessible for people with disabilities.

St Peter’s Cricket Club, which is based by the Preston Park velodrome, has leased the Victorian pavilion for just over 130 years.

The club said: “The existing club house is circa 132 years old and is no longer fit for purpose as a clubhouse. It is simply too small to accommodate an extensive and growing membership.

“It is underused outside the cricket season (and) can be mistaken for an empty and obsolescent building.”

The club wants to build a two-storey extension at the back of the building to the basement and ground floor. It said that from the front it will still look like a single-storey building.

The club leases the pavilion from Brighton and Hove City Council and submitted a planning application to the council last month after consulting neighbours.

It said: “The area proposed for the extension of the clubhouse fronting Preston Drove does not have an active frontage and contains storage areas and access for council maintenance equipment (which will be retained) but is otherwise not used and is an eyesore with rubbish and discarded items strewn around the site.

“The building does not provide the necessary facilities to be compliant with national sporting organisation guidelines (i.e. Sport England and ECB) and importantly is not disabled compliant, which means that the club’s ability to appeal to disability and other gender groups is severely constrained.

“The building is too narrow to function properly, does not have disabled access or toilets, the changing rooms are too small and do not provide an adequate number of toilets and showers, no compartmentalisation between males and females and limited space for social gatherings and events.”

The changes are aimed at putting right the problems and the club said: “We have consulted with Sport England and adopted their guidelines as far as possible in the design, in order that all of the above limitations are addressed and that the building is accessible and meets the requirements of a diverse group of users.

“Apart from minor refurbishment over the years, the physical structure and layout has remained largely unchanged for over 100 years and is no longer fit for purpose as a multi-use building.