Black Lion Street parking goes from Wednesday as the Old Ship Hotel expands

From Wednesday 4 November, you won’t be able to park on Black Lion Street, the side street that runs up from Kings Road beside the Old Ship Hotel. Brighton & Hove City Council³ is suspending the shared permit holder and paid parking there, Pay By Phone code 85347, along with the motorcycle bay, to make room for a loading lane for the hotel’s redevelopment. The Argus⁴ first reported the change.

The order lasts up to 18 months. The council expects the works to be finished by 2 August 2027, and the suspension ends when they are. People on foot can still use the street.

The work is the expansion the council approved on 27 July 2023. The garage on Black Lion Street comes down and a six-storey extension goes up in its place. The hotel also gets a single-storey mansard roof extension on Kings Road, a reworked inner courtyard and an enclosed fire escape on Ship Street. The scheme adds 70 bedrooms, taking the hotel to 224 according to the officer report, along with a gym in the basement and four small shop units on Ship Street.

The Old Ship is a locally listed building in the Old Town Conservation Area, put together from buildings dating from 1767 to the 1960s. The oldest part is the Grade II* listed Assembly Rooms of 1767. The council has approved separate work on those rooms, covering their layout and roof.

An earlier version, approved in 2020, had a courtyard pool and six shops. The officer report says the owners made “minor alterations in response to viability concerns” after Covid hit the hotel trade, dropping the pool and two of the shops. The council’s planning policy team welcomed “investment in a hotel located within the Hotel Core Zone”.

The permission comes with two green conditions. The development must reach a BREEAM sustainability rating of “Excellent”, and the council has to approve plans for swift boxes before the new space is used.

The shops on Ship Street must stay as separate small units. Planners expect them to “encourage footfall along Ship Street”.