What now for the Montreal Arms?

The fate of one of Brighton’s famous green-tiled pubs is now unknown, following the failure of a legal case.

Brighton and Hove City Council today dropped their prosecution of developer Charlie Southall, citing a planning inspector’s decision that it was no longer in the public interest to pursue.

This afternoon, a second appeal dealing with identical issues was also granted, with the inspector imposing costs against the council.

During the hearing, the council’s barrister, Peter Savil, stated that the council had no intention of reviving any case related to the enforcement notice.

Southall himself stated that the situation was now one of “planning paralysis”. Brighton and Hove City Council was sought for comment but did not answer at the time of publication.

In March of last year, Savills listed the pub for sale, and for sale signs were placed over the broken tiles.

However, the listing was taken down from the estate agent’s website in August, and the boards have since been removed.

Meanwhile, structural reports indicate that the pub is in critical deterioration, with extensive repairs required for rusted structural steels and large sections of its external walls needing to be replaced.

Southall has filed numerous planning applications and appeals since removing the tiles from the bar in March 2022, beginning with an unsuccessful appeal against the enforcement notice itself.

The council granted him permission to restore the pub in 2024, but placed several conditions, including the requirement that he provide details of any tiles that needed to be removed for structural work prior to their removal.

He filed an appeal against the terms, but withdrew it at the eleventh hour. It has since been reported that the council requested for Southall to reimburse its costs, which was agreed.

The inspector claimed Southall was unreasonable when he wanted a public hearing but then insisted that attendees be vetted in advance in case they put him in danger.

When he was told this was not possible, he withdrew the appeal due to safety concerns, the risk of the planning approval being lost, and his belief that the inspector was biased because she had previously worked for the council.

The inspector determined that these were not good reasons and awarded the council expenses. The cost decision can be viewed here.

The council declined in February 2025, but this was overturned on appeal, so he can now remove the tiles and perform the restoration without additional approval.

The council’s refusal to approve off was based on concerns about the quality of the expert studies presented by Southall.

The council’s planning officers were concerned that one of the emails he sent to the planning inspector was Southall’s version of the full report and may be “selectively quoted”.

Another came from pest controllers Rentokil, who the officers claimed were unqualified to make structural decisions.

However, a third was issued by an established structural engineer, Couch Consulting Engineers, in February 2024 and based in part on a survey conducted in October 2022.

The council referred this to an independent structural surveyor, who indicated the report was good but that it would be difficult to limit tile removal to only the places that required to be repaired.

None of these comments or concerns were disclosed to Southall, and the planning inspector decided that by failing to explain why his reports were insufficient for them, it had acted unreasonable.

He also stated that it was fair to remove all of the tiles so that the building’s major structural work could be completed.