BHCC - RS - Royal Pavilion Gardens Landscape and Amenities works

Descriptions

The Royal Pavilion Estate is the city of Brighton & Hove's cultural heart and the Royal Pavilion is an internationally recognised emblem. Uniquely combining an historic Royal Palace and Regency Garden, a museum & art gallery, and three performing arts spaces, the two custodians of the Estate Brighton & Hove Museums (B&HM) and Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival (BD&BF) are coming together with BHCC in a cross-cultural partnership to reinvigorate and reconnect this historic Estate through the implementation of an estate-wide masterplan. This project relates to Phase Two of the masterplan for the Royal Pavilion Estate (Phase One was the refurbishment of the Corn Exchange).

The Royal Pavilion Garden comprises 3.3ha of paths, lawns, shrubberies, garden beds and ancient trees. Importantly it comprises the setting and is the access point, for the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

Presently, the garden is a partially restored John Nash designed Regency Garden (listed Grade II). It has recently been placed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register (HARR) due to its deteriorating condition which is a result of overuse, antisocial behaviour and lack of investment.

The Royal Pavilion Estate contains many historic listed buildings and features:

- Royal Pavilion Garden (Grade II)

- Royal Pavilion (Grade I)

- Brighton Museum & Art Gallery (Grade II*)

- Brighton Dome Theatre (Grade I)

- Corn Exchange (Grade II)

- Northgate House (Grade II*)

- India Gate (Grade II)

- William IV Gate (Grade II*)

- 19 William IV Lamp posts (Grade II)

Following successful completion of the development phase funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the project partners BHCC & B&HM have jointly secured £6.2M from the National Lottery Heritage Fund with roughly 60% allocated to the capital works project to re redevelop the estate. This notice relates to the Capital works only.

The approved designs focus on the conservation and improvement of the garden to enhance environmental sustainability and to attract a wider range of people and ensuring there are more opportunities for use and community involvement.

The planned capital works consist of:

- New visitor and community facilities including a new public toilet facility with changing places, outdoor learning space, benches and bins.

- Extensive landscaping improvements including path widening and entrance improvements.

- Restoration of historic planting designs.

- Restoration of historic fixtures such as perimeter railings and lamp columns.

- New physical interpretation and wayfinding

Our key priorities are to:

- Deliver high quality and visually engaging spaces in this highly public and well loved public space in the centre of Brighton

- Connect the Royal Estate, creating a sense of arrival

- Minimise disruption to the site whilst delivering the works, to enable the Trust relies on visitors to maintain the viability of the site.

The tender process is planned as a competitive flexible procedure consisting of at least two stages; a shortlisting stage and a full tender stage. The shortlisting stage is currently due to be released to the open market.

The current programme expects the release of the initial shortlisting stage in mid to late October 2025 with full tender release in February 2026. The planned site handover should then go-ahead late summer, early autumn 2026.