Renew Preston Village News
Coming up this month: November ’25
As we enter November, the campaign looks forward to a formal response on the City Transport Plan and to meeting council leader Bella Sankey at her Autumn Preston Ward surgery.
The campaign also hopes to meet deputy council leaders Jacob Taylor and Tim Rowkin to discuss the potential economic and environmental gains from Renewing Preston Village.
In early October, Renew Preston Village campaign met with Cllr Liz Loughran and Cabinet Member for Public Realm for a very positive meeting. Cllr Jacob Allen who promised to follow up on campaign progress internally at the council and wrote…“The general vision is absolutely something we as an administration is on board with”
The campaign also received a note of support from David Milner, MD of Create Streets - a social enterprise and urban design consultancy.
“Renew Preston Village is one of the most exciting locally-led projects we at Create Streets have come across. It could not be more urgent and important to deliver cleaner air, safe streets and flood mitigation for Preston Village”
September Richard James, founder of Studio for Place Creation published a short design guide.
The guide provides examples of good public realm and proposes drawing down themes from St Peters church into the design of new public realm in Preston Village. Richard commented;
“Preston Village has great untapped potential. With refined public realm design and careful attention to detail, it could become one of Brighton’s most beautiful and connected neighbourhoods – enhancing wellbeing, supporting local business, and strengthening community identity.”
See the Preston Village Design Guide here
See the Studio for Place Creation report for B&H council here
Also in September there were examples of surface water flooding highlighting the need for better drainage systems in Preston Village.
Thanks to Ross from Languard Alarms and other local residents for coming out to clear the drains!
At the beginning of August, Local artist and architect Steve Atkinson from Atkinson & Co publishes Before & After visuals of Preston Village based on the traffic engineering concepts.
The visuals demonstrate opportunities for improved public realm, flood mitigation and cycle lane improvements in Preston Village. See the Before & After sliders on our homepage
on 10th July 2025, Renew Preston Village delivered the petition of 1500 signatures to the council at Hove Town Hall. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take our village sign into the council chamber but you can read the transcript of our deputation here.
The petition was warmly received, with Cllr Trevor Muten commenting; “I very much hope that funding can be secured to develop and implement proposals for this area in the future.”
Volunteers also met with cabinet member for Culture, Heritage and Tourism, Cllr Birgit Miller, to look at the history and architectural heritage of Preston Village. Cllr Miller wrote: “ I couldn’t agree more about the need to revive Preston Village as a place”.
Read coverage from the Argus
In July the campaign also received an important letter of support from B&H Museums, the trust responsible for Preston Manor.
“Brighton & Hove Museums support the principles of this initiative which we hope will help to make this special part of Brighton a destination in its own right.”
June this year saw Renew Preston Village campaign invited by Charles Field interim Director of City Infrastructure to formally contribute as a stakeholder to the City Transport Plan (CTP 2035) consultation.
CTP 2035 evidence shows that the A23 through Preston Village accomodates annual average daily traffic flow of 20,085 vehicles.
Read more about the City transport plan 2035 here
During May, Renew Preston Village volunteers met with Cabinet Member for Transport & Infrastructure, Cllr Trevor Muten to discuss the challenges of flooding and road safety in Preston Village. Cllr Muten proposed that we submit our petition, then at 1300 signatures, to the general council for delivery in July.
On his facebook page, Trevor wrote “Really positive meeting with campaign organisers from Renew Preston Village. To listen to their very positive vision for this area was inspiring and a great basis to co-develop a better look and feel, better public realm and space for people in a busy area of through flow”
April; Gary Smith, a volunteer local resident who is also a Local Authority Traffic Engineer, generated a diagram estimating that an area equivalent of 3.3 tennis courts of space could be made available for public realm, active travel and flood prevention in front of the shops in Preston Village.
Gary described the opportunity for changes to Preston Village as a “no brainer”.
The same month, our petition signatures hit 1000 and Renew Preston Village campaign was contacted by local resident and Consultant Town Planner Michael Scanlon who commented:
“For very limited resources, we can restore the heart of Preston Village, support active travel, and create a more sustainable, people focused neighbourhood”.
