Campaigner Asks Councillors To Rethink Plans For Brighton's "Most Dangerous" Roundabout

A community campaigner asked Labour to distance itself from claims that the Aquarium roundabout was the most dangerous in Brighton and Hove.

Adrian Hart, who stood for the Brighton and Hove Independents at the local elections in May, called on the new team in charge of the council to “set the record straight”.

Mr Hart called on Labour’s transport chief to offer a different response from his Green predecessor about safety levels at the roundabout outside the Palace Pier and Sea Life Centre.

He said that there were relatively few accidents – not least considering that the traffic flow amounted to more than 18 million journeys a year.

His question came after Labour paused a major project to revamp the road layout in the area after repeated concerns were raised during the recent local election campaign.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the scheme – the Valley Gardens project – was the plan to replace the roundabout with a T-junction controlled by traffic lights.

One reason given for scrapping the roundabout as part of Valley Gardens Phase Three – the final stage of the redesign of the area from St Peter’s Church to the sea – was to make the junction safer for cyclists.

The roundabout has been described as “the most dangerous junction in the city” during previous debates about the Valley Gardens project.

Mr Hart spoke when Brighton and Hove City Council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee met at Hove Town Hall this afternoon (Thursday 6 July).

He said:

“Danger to road users at a particular junction cannot be reduced to the number of accidents and then compared with other junctions without factoring in flow rate.

Crashmap data for all accidents at the Palace Pier aquarium roundabout 2017 to 2021 - red marks a serious accident

“The Aquarium roundabout handles a massive flow rate of over 18 million journeys a year, with relatively few accidents—just a handful – none fatal.

“This makes it one of the safest junctions. Roundabout junctions process traffic flow efficiently. Removing this one would be a folly.”

He asked the new Labour council to look again at the relevant safety – or danger – calculations and urged them to consider a report by the council’s specialist consultant Mott McDonald.

The consultant’s report said that removing the roundabout would increase congestion, delays and pollution.

Mr Hart’s question followed similar questions in June last year when Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh challenged the “most dangerous” roundabout label at a similar town hall meeting.

At the time, Councillor Fishleigh said that the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, had asked the Transport Secretary whether his department produced a list of dangerous roundabouts. The response was that it did not.

She was removed from the meeting after repeatedly challenging Green councillor Steve Davis, who was chairing the meeting. He said that he had spoken with a national newspaper journalist about the list.

But the Department for Transport provides data for the Crash Map UK website which shows six serious accidents and 12 slight accidents involving “pedal cycles” from 2017 to 2021 at or near the roundabout.

Over the same five years there were 42 accidents involving all types of vehicle and, of these, 13 were rated as “serious”, out of more than 90 million traffic movements.

The figures were similar for 2012 to 2016, with 41 accidents, of which nine were rated as serious.

Labour councillor Trevor Muten, who chairs the council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee, said:

“We set out to review this junction as part of the Valley Gardens Phase Three work to make sure that it is the best option we can possibly get for this.

“There has been a lot of work to establish a design for this. We need to check this and make sure it works for all constituencies, providing safe access and crossings for cyclists and pedestrians.

“It is a busy traffic intersection of two major A roads on the seafront and there is a call and reasonableness to make sure this junction works and is made safer.”