BCP's chair refused five councillors' request for an emergency meeting on the SOBO Beach lease, the campaign says. It wants a review first. Updated November 2026.

The chair of BCP Council has refused a request from five councillors for an emergency meeting about the 20-year SOBO Beach lease in Southbourne. That is the account of the Save SOBO Beach campaign, which is now asking councillors to call the meeting themselves.

The council has not published its own account. We checked its news hub and site map on 5 November and found nothing new on the lease. So the chair’s reasons below come only through the campaign, and the campaign is one side of this.

What the campaign says happened

The campaign says the five councillors wanted to discuss the procurement, the independent review and whether to pause. It says the chair refused because the matter had already been debated, and because reopening the earlier decision would need more councillors’ support.

It argues that the law gives another route. Schedule 12 of the Local Government Act 1972 lets five councillors call an extraordinary meeting once the chair has refused.

The campaign also cites Rule 15.2 of the council’s constitution. It says a recent resolution can be reconsidered on a motion backed by at least a quarter of councillors.

Dan Astin-Gregory, the campaign’s co-founder, said: “The Council has agreed to independent scrutiny but has not committed to waiting for its findings before entering into a binding twenty-year agreement.”

Where the lease stands

Full Council on 13 October approved the new 20-year lease for the Southbourne Promenade site. It also offered the current operator another 11 months and sent the procurement to the Audit and Governance Committee for review.

That resolution did not say the review must finish before the lease is signed. This is the whole of the dispute now:

  • The campaign’s position: “Review First. Sign Second.”
  • The council’s position: no commitment to wait has been published
  • The petition: 10,823 signatures, on the campaign’s count

The timing is the part we cannot confirm. The procurement standstill, the pause before a contract can be signed, has been extended more than once. The campaign said on 2 November it was “understood to expire” on Wednesday 4 November. It also said that extension was not yet showing on the government’s tender portal.

It had said on 22 October that 15 November was the earliest signing date. It has asked for the standstill to run to at least 30 November. By the morning of 5 November the campaign had reported nothing further, and we have seen no statement that the lease has been signed.

The campaign also says SOBO Beach’s management has separately begun pre-action legal steps over the procurement, and that it works independently of them.

What it means for you

If you want a say, the people who can act are your BCP councillors. The next scheduled Full Council is on 8 December, which may be after the signing window opens.

The 13 October decision offered the current operator another 11 months, and we have seen nothing withdrawing that. Our earlier reports set out what the Council voted for and the seafront leases.