The Brighton centre: Eurovision and beyond

The Brighton Centre has witnessed some of the most notorious events in its 20 or so year history, not least was Tony Blair's humiliation at last month's Trades Union Congress. For the national and international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities, the centre was, of course, host to Abba's Eurovisionwinning performance of 'Waterloo'. It's where we Brightonians and Hove Actualites come to let our hair down and to refurb or rebuild is now the question.

The obvious thing to say is that the Brighton Centre is outdated, has poor facilities and inadequate exhibition space. The building is architecturally boring, incorporating some of the worst aspects of urban planning. The council is looking at options for redeveloping the site and the cinema next door, to provide a modern centre, a new luxury hotel (utterly illogical given that the Grand and two Hilton hotels are next door), social housing and a new cinema complex.

Funding the scheme, which will cost an estimated £250 million, is an enormous issue. Green councillors have arned of funding the scheme with casinos and I can't see why gambling should even be countenanced as an option. Research in 2004 found 370,000 problem gamblers in the UK, and projections suggest the Labour Government's Gambling Act of this year will double that number. To hold on to our reputation as an excellent national and international conference provider, other streams of funding must be found �" my personal suggestions include congestion charging for the city and heavy fines on the use of 4 x 4s.

If you flick through the entertainment guides or the NME, it's clear that bands and entertainers aren't coming to the Brighton Centre in the same way they used to, and with rivalry from theatres in Crawley and Croydon, it's not good enough that we've lazily accepted the demise of the largest indoor venue in our area. The fact that the acoustics in the building are dreadful isn't helpful and until we seriously engage in this debate, and sound out a strong future for the building, we'll continue to see its slow downfall.

If and when the UK wins Eurovision again and has to choose a venue, why would it choose the run-down, out-of-date Brighton Centre facilities above the modern venues of Manchester and Birmingham?

We must rebuild the Brighton Centre because this is an easy, sustainable method of the city making money and investing in wellpaid jobs. Otherwise, in the words of Abba, we're at risk of the history book on the shelf repeating itself and our city realising too late how to hold onto what we're good at.