Happy Birthday to the Level
1The Level has celebrated it's first birthday! That is since approximately £2.5 million was spent improving the public park a year ago. The majority of the funding came from a £2.2m Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund grant.
The leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Jason Kitcat told Latest News that with budgets being cut, they've had to seek alternative means to fund public projects. He said: "Councils are seeing their funding cut very significantly by government.
And so, you need to do a project like this which gets funding from people like the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund to jumpstart a renewal, because we just don't have the funds to do it on our own."
People using the park remember the sour reputation the level used to have and were keen to celebrate the transformation. Amy Stevens was selling cakes on behalf of Brighton Belles Women's Institute and she said: "I remember what kind of dodgy place it used to be, and everyone wanted to avoid it.
Now, you come past it on the weekend, the fountains are on, the flowers are looking beautiful at this time of year -- it's a great place to come."