Placetest: Brighton’s high streets

North Laine

 

This quirkiness extends to the “high street” of North Laine. This is not a single thoroughfare, but a series of streets leading north away from the old town: Gardner Street, Kensington Gardens and Sydney Street. It is frequented by a mixture of locals and visitors, mostly younger alternative types in couples or small friendship groups, who browse the range of shops and stalls, stopping for lunch or coffee. Kensington Gardens is a narrow pedestrian walkway which makes for a slow pace of life, particularly on busy days. Gardner Street and Sydney Street are partially pedestrianised, the former closed to traffic at weekends, allowing the cafes and restaurants to provide al fresco refreshment, and the shops to have outside stalls or racks of clothing for passers-by. The whole area has the feeling of an open market. As one frequent visitor from London observes: “It’s a bit like Camden, but much more laid back. It feels safer here – more relaxed and slower.”

 

For many, North Laine epitomises Brighton. Its streets are dominated by small independent and specialist outlets, their largely Victorian frontages brightly painted or sculpturally embellished – for example, the Komedia venue and cinema, which has large “can-can” legs in stripy tights that kick high above Gardner Street. There are pubs, cafes and restaurants, boutiques selling designer clothes, jewellery, bed linen, shoes, records and CDs, cards, books, flowers, plus intriguing combinations of specialisation, such as juggling and skateboards, and homeware and sex toys.

 

This specialism is important for North Laine high street users. These are discerning shoppers looking for style and uniqueness, and who appreciate expertise. “It’s nice to buy from people who know what they’re talking about,” says one. For others, it signals a nostalgia for independents and expertise. A former Brighton resident in his fifties, who frequently returns for visits, says: “Brighton was always one of those places where you could find specialist shops. I remember there was a glove shop and an umbrella shop, and the Cheese Shop ... you can guess what they used to sell. It’s good to see that still going. It’s different from other places.”

 

Although there is some turnover among North Laine retail units, there are also some significant long-term fixtures. Gunns Florist has been there since the 1950s; Infinity Foods, a grocery and baker that sells organic, vegetarian and vegan foods, has been there since the 1970s; and Vegetarian Shoes since 1990. The emphasis on independents, specialism and expertise points towards an independent and free-thinking ethos, often linking to forms of critical or even radical politics and radical consumption. For many years, Brighton Pavilion, in which North Laine sits, was the only UK constituency to return a Green Party MP to Parliament. As the Green Party is expanding, so with it is an awareness of ethical consumption, including not only vegetarian and vegan eating, but also vintage and second-hand clothing, homeware and vinyl, all of which have numerous outlets in North Laine. The Amnesty Bookshop opened on Sydney Street in 2007, while the Oxfam Bookshop is on Kensington Gardens.

 

This liberal ethos extends also to sexual politics. From the early 1800s, Brighton became a place of escape from the moral strictures of London society, most notably for Prince George (who became Prince Regent and then George IV). It was he who built the ostentatious Royal Pavilion, and used Brighton as a place to gamble, feast and conduct his illicit affair with his Catholic lover Maria Fitzherbert.

 

As Brighton gained fashionability, it developed a large LGBTQ+ community. The 2021 Census showed that over 10 per cent of Brighton’s adult population identify as LGB+, much higher than the national average of just over 3 per cent.

 

North Laine has a villagey feel, which has been cultivated for 50 years by the North Laine Community Association, and its establishment as a scheduled conservation area. This places restrictions on shopfront design but, more significantly, preserved the residential areas that surround the North Laine High Street. The name North Laine described an area of agricultural land that, until the Regency period, lay outside Brighton’s boundaries but, as the town expanded, became built upon, initially as stabling and agricultural storage but subsequently as industrial units and, critically, terraced housing in which workers in the expanding town could live. These houses remained inhabited but were threatened by the post-Second World War penchant for “slum-clearance” rather than renovation of housing stock, until residents in the 1970s set up the community association.

 

The association has met regularly now for 50 years, and publishes a bi-monthly magazine highlighting North Laine issues for which it campaigns. The result is a strong sense of place and commitment to a shared endeavour between residents and retailers alike. This feels like a high street in which shopkeepers know each other and look out for each other, recognising the importance of community and cooperation; and in which both residents and retailers recognise the need to keep the shops busy. This is an example of long-term community placemaking in the interests of preserving the unique atmosphere of what for many is the quintessentially Brighton high street.

 

London Road

 

If you keep walking north from the end of Sydney Street and past the imposing new Brighton Met further education college building, you reach London Road, which is a very different kind of high street to North Laine and serves a very different set of constituencies. It is much more like the kinds of high street one might find in smaller towns throughout the UK. It has a couple of supermarkets, some cafes, a pub or two, pound-shops, lots of take-away food outlets and lots of charity shops. But unlike other similar high streets, there are not many empty units, and there remains a residue of more specialist retailers: hi-fi shops, an optician and a cookware shop for trade and retail.

 

London Road has a reputation for being down at heel. “All homeless, druggies and Deliveroo,” said one Brightonian. It does feel slightly edgy, less safe than North Laine, and this is reflected in how people use it. Here movement is fast and purposeful – in and out of shops without browsing or dwelling on the street’s sights. There are opportunities for outdoor eating and drinking, but it somehow feels less bohemian and comfortable. This is partly due to the traffic. London Road is one of the main arteries into the city centre, and an important bus interchange. It is also a hub for grocery and take-away delivery drivers on push-bikes, e-bikes and mopeds. As a result, it is a place of movement and transience, and one that largely serves the local population. Few outside visitors would come to London Road unless they are going to an event at Presuming Ed’s coffee bar and venue, to the Duke of York’s cinema or to the World’s End, which has become a raceway and arcade pub. London Road is inward-looking– a back-stage high street for Brighton people themselves.

 

There are a variety of people on London Road. The proximity of social housing units means there are more people with disabilities, some using mobility scooters. Compared with Brighton as a whole, people are from poorer backgrounds, there are more elderly people, more people with young children, and more migrants or refugees who either walk from nearby residential areas or bus in to take advantage of the relatively cheap grocery shopping at Aldi or the Co-op. It is not unusual to see them struggling on to buses with a number of shopping bags and perhaps a walking stick or a child in a buggy. These are not the style-conscious hipsters of North Laine.

 

The cheap shops and pound-shops are also attractive to groups of younger teenagers, some of whom visit London Road on their way home from school as they change buses. They run in and out of shops together, ignoring the signs that say “No more than two children at a time” and evading the store security guards. There are also university students for whom this is now home.

 

Recent efforts have been made to improve London Road. Its shopfronts, gables and shutters have been painted with colourful designs and murals, in part to deter the graffiti practice of “tagging” – an issue across the city – and replace it with street art.

 

As early as the mid-2000s, the city council recognised that London Road needed some kind of regeneration process. A local action team was created in 2008 to promote the interests of the neighbourhood, and in 2012, an application was made to the Portas programme, which granted £83,000 for redevelopment.

 

As well as improving its appearance, the London Road Development Plan included a concerted strategy of repopulating it, particularly by replacing large empty retail premises with student accommodation. A landmark of this type of development was the rebuilding of the old Co-op department store, which is now private student housing. The developers were required to retain the old store frontage so as to preserve the aesthetics of the street. Its change of use has brought in more than 350 new student residents to the high street. This in turn has helped with the viability of food and drink outlets, and led to the opening of a high-street gym.

 

This repopulation is beginning to change the character of London Road. Although students are not permanent and stable residents, they do nevertheless collectively and over time make place, and the planning process has begun to affect this placemaking. Students are in general looking for something more experiential and performative on the high street, or something cheap and convenient. This is why the North Laine works for them – they spend entertaining time there without spending much money, and there are plenty of second hand/vintage shops. This also works for London Road, where you have the gym, Aldi and Co-op, plus charity shops and take-aways.

 

As one Brighton resident in their fifties said: “London Road is really booming ... when you think how it was 10, 15 years ago. It’s really starting to have life.”

 

North Street, Churchill Square and Western Road

 

The maintenance of the Co-op frontage on London Road is important. There is considerable nostalgia among elderly Brightonians for the department stores of their memories, including the Co-op and Woolworths. The same is true of North Street and Western Road where, if you look up from the modern shopfronts, you see vestiges of design from previous, grander times: the stone-carved names of Hannington’s department store and Burton’s tailors; and the Art Deco grandeur of the Arcade Buildings opposite Churchill Square shopping centre.

 

If North Laine is part of Brighton’s front-stage and London Road part of its back-stage, the main shopping area consisting of North Street, Churchill Square and the East end of Western Road mediates somewhat between the two. It is less distinctive than North Laine and less edgy than London Road, housing familiar high-street chain stores, mostly for clothing but also pharmacy, sports equipment, books and phones; interspersed with convenience chain stores, the odd pub, restaurant and cafe, souvenir shops and the ubiquitous Greggs. It draws in visitor and resident alike, as Brighton’s equivalent of Oxford Street – a bustling and busy shopping street. The range of people using the area is consequently much broader – a full cross-section.

 

Like London Road, it is a transport hub, with buses converging from all parts of the city. It is not unusual for people to take buses from Churchill Square to London Road to do their grocery shopping and return to pick up a connection back home. This area has had no large supermarkets since the old Churchill Square shopping centre was knocked down, so people do not do their grocery shopping here, except for a very select few who shop at the M&S food hall.

 

Oversight of the area is managed by the Business Improvement District, branded as Brilliant Brighton. It organises seasonal street decoration and events, as well as a team of on-street “ambassadors” who patrol the central city, liaising between businesses, customers and other agencies such as the council or community police. It constitutes a form of corporate or business-led placemaking that is particularly apparent in the recent Churchill Square developments.

 

Unlike the North Laine, the rows of Victorian housing that once occupied where Churchill Square now sits were not spared the 1960s “slum-clearance” process. This had been planned as early as the 1930s but was only completed in 1968. Homes were replaced by an open-air shopping centre, built in the Brutalist square blocks of the era – all concrete and plate glass. The square was rebuilt in the early 1990s to a less distinctive modern design and enclosed as an indoor shopping mall. It housed two department stores, British Home Stores and Debenhams, until they collapsed, in 2016 and 2021 respectively.

 

There was concern for the centre’s future until it was bought by Ingka Centres, the parent company of Ikea, which opened a branch in the centre in August 2025. More than this, though, Ikea has begun what might be seen as its own placemaking process, through its use of branding throughout Churchill Square, to create an “event” and an “experience”. The shopping centre now has large yellow signs outside announcing “Hej! Brighton” (Hi, Brighton). Its indoor seating areas have been furnished with Ikea chairs, tables and sofas, while yellow guidelines lead visitors to the doors of the store (or the managed queues when the store is busy). It has been popular, significantly increasing footfall in the centre, and providing a focus and identity, so much so that it controversially imposed restrictions on large and teenage groups, to maintain security.

 

Ikea sees a synergy between Brighton’s liberal ethos and its own mission to “create a better everyday life for the many people”. The company has pledged to “develop Churchill Square’s strong retail fundamentals by adapting its retail offer to community needs and to invest in Churchill Square’s infrastructure to play a part in supporting the council’s drive to establish a thriving local circular economy”.

 

This is a different form of placemaking from the community and planning-based processes in North Laine and London Road, but nevertheless represents an acknowledgement that, if the high street is to survive, let alone thrive, it must be humanised; constituted as place.

 

The thrust of this Placetest has been largely positive, but there are real concerns in Brighton’s high streets: about the effects of the cost-of-living crisis and changing tax regimes on independent retailers; about the sustainability of relying on tourist and student spending to keep the high street afloat in the context of limiting resources and falling student numbers; and about the vulnerability of placing the city’s flagship shopping centre in the hands of a single enterprise. For the moment, though, Brighton’s high streets seem vibrant places.

 

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Jon P Mitchell is emeritus professor of social anthropology at the University of Sussex