UPDATE: Funfair Renders Brighton Green Space Unusable For Local School

Children have lost the only green space where they were able to practise football after grass at The Level was churned up by the recent funfair there.

The head teacher of Fairlight Primary and Nursery School, in St Lawrence Road, Brighton, said that pupils had no other outdoor green space in the area.

Fairlight head Damien Jordan said that The Level was left a muddy quagmire for the second time this school year, preventing his keen young footballers from practising on Friday mornings.

Mr Jordan emailed Brighton and Hove City Council about the problem – and praised his pupils for reaching the finals of the Sussex Schools Brighton Cup.

He said:

“Not bad for an inner-city school with no playing fields where three quarters of the children have little if any outdoor space where they live (and) where over half the children are pupil premium or have EAL (English as an additional language).

“Our football is learnt on the street, in the playground or on a Friday morning before school at The Level. You may have seen us playing football at 8am in the morning at The Level.

“Well, it would be if The Level wasn’t once again destroyed by the pointless (not) funfair.

“For the second time this school year, The Level is now out of action for over a month. I am not sure if you have seen it this week. It looks like a scene from War Horse.

“The fair being on The Level means the local community have little if any access to the grass facilities for several weeks at different points of the year.

“And this time, once again, the state of The Level after the fair has left now means it will be out of action for weeks, if not longer.

“For inner-city children, this outdoor space should be prioritised to be used as much as possible and for activities that are free.”

Mr Jordan also spelt out worries about problems with anti-social behaviour, saying:

“The Level should be a celebrated and prioritised space. It has, in recent months, had rapes and stabbings.

“There have been consistent problems with drink, drugs and homelessness, rubbish, flooding – the list of problems with this park is huge.

“Yet for us, this is our space. And we love using it. And we feel safe there.”

Mr Jordan, who was born and raised in the city, questioned why the fair was needed when the Palace Pier had a fairground all year round.

He added:

“My Nan used to moan about the cost of the fair and how she was spending her hard-earned money from the launderette she worked in on a fair that then moved on and wasn’t part of the city.

“Who were we going to give the fish back to when it died! Parents at Fairlight are saying the same.”

The council said:

“We understand the concerns about the current condition of the ground at The Level.

“We have been particularly unlucky with the weather this year and we have more mud than we would usually expect. We will be working to improve the surface as quickly as possible.

“We believe it is important for our open spaces to continue to reflect the needs and aspirations of all our residents.

“We actively maintain outdoor spaces for sport, exercise and other recreational activities – particularly for children and schools. Sometimes spaces get muddy because of use and we continually repair any damage.

“The twice-annual funfair at The Level has been run successfully for 60 years now by a local operator. We believe this success clearly demonstrates there is still a significant desire from local people for it to continue.

“We can also assure residents that the operators of the funfair take their responsibilities to the park very seriously and do their best to reduce impact.

“The funfair is timed to meet the key annual grass-growing season. We always seek to minimise damage as much as possible.”

Festival Fun Fairs have been approached for comment

UPDATE

Story by Sarah Booker-Lewis:

Heavy rain that left a Brighton park waterlogged and muddy was “unprecedented”, according to a fairground family who have operated on the site for decades.

Cousins James and Bill Cole were speaking about The Level after checking on the ground condition there after complaints from Fairlight Primary School’s head teacher Damien Jordan.

Mr Jordan said that the park where his pupils played football on Friday mornings was out of action because it had become too muddy.

But the Coles, part of a fairground family from Sussex that has operated the funfair at The Level for more than 60 years, said that they would not have moved on to the site if it was muddy.

During the Coronation weekend, though, a deluge of rain left the Brighton park waterlogged, delaying the fair’s departure.

The heavy rain meant that the fair did not move on to Victoria Park, in Portslade, as they would usually do because it would risk damaging the ground.

Bill Cole said:

“There was 104 per cent higher than average rainfall. We did work considerably hard to deal with it.

“It was dry when we came on. If it was as wet as it became when we arrived, we would have cancelled.

“We’ve never had anything like this before. We took extra days to come off.

“There’s been a lot of improvement over the last few days and, with a grass cut, it will be fine.”

Before the fair’s vehicles move on to the site, he said, workers put down hard surfacing to ensure the ground is not churned into ruts as they move on and off-site.

Bill Cole said that his teams took extra care to ensure that the ground was not damaged as they came off the site in a quagmire of mud and rainwater.

The cousins were upset by Mr Jordan’s comments in an email to Brighton and Hove City Council that the “pointless” fair had put The Level out of action for more than a month.

James Cole said:

“It’s very hurtful. We have young people come here with special needs, people who enjoy it. It’s not a pointless fair.

“All the businesses around here know us and welcome us. The Level isn’t out of action for a month. It’s not unusable.”

The Level is notorious for flooding. The underground and culverted Wellesbourne and Winterbourne rivers converge at the southern end of the site.

Mr Jordan said that he met councillors and parks staff at The Level to discuss access for his school’s football players.

In an email to the council, he said:

“The fair being on The Level means the local community have little if any access to the grass facilities for several weeks at different points of the year.

“And this time, once again, the state of The Level after the fair has left now means it will be out of action for weeks, if not longer.

“For inner-city children, this outdoor space should be prioritised to be used as much as possible and for activities that are free.”