Demolition is underway to build a new hotel in Brighton

Almost all of the original building was demolished by excavators.

The exhibition space was last used in 2018, with the city’s tourism team reassuring councilors at a meeting last year that losing the space would not affect Brighton’s ability to host large conferences.

The plans were approved by Brighton and Hove City Councils after agreeing that the new development would improve the appearance of the area.

A condition of the planning permission requires the owner of the Metropole site, Topland, to spend £50,000 on public art.

However, the Regency Square Area Society and the Brighton Society both objected to the plans due to concerns about repairing older facades at Cannon Place and St Margaret’s Place and that the new hotel’s design would not be sympathetic to the area.

An artist’s rendering of the new hotel at Cannon Place

A spokesman for the Brighton Society said last year; “It is an overbearing, poorly conceived and poorly designed proposal that is out of context with the reserve’s surroundings in terms of scale, shape, detail and materials.

“It’s trying to cram too much housing onto its sensitive side.”