Brad Pitt takes a role in the redesign of Hove seafront

THE final plans for a huge and controversial seafront development, designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry — with a little help from Brad Pitt, the actor — went on show yesterday.

The £ 250 million King Alfred development in Hove, East Sussex, was redesigned after the original plan for four residential towers was criticised as an eyesore and “looking like Noddyland”. The acclaimed Canadian-born architect, best known for the titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has come up with a design that incorporates two residential towers with a “crumpled” appearance — one 246ft high and the other 197ft — and eight smaller blocks, a total of 745 flats.

Almost 40 per cent of the flats will be earmarked as “affordable” housing association properties while the site of Hove’s old swimming pool will also accommodate a sports centre with a multi-coloured dome.

Gehry, 76, is said to be treating Pitt, whom he has known for several years, as an “apprentice” on the scheme, allowing him to design a restaurant and a penthouse apartment.

Not everyone, however, has been impressed with the redevelopment plans, with both the Brighton Society and Regency Society opposing such a large-scale development in an area famed for its elegant Regency buildings. Garry Peltzer-Dunn, the minority Tory group leader, called it a disgraceful over-development.

But Ken Bodfish, the leader of Brighton and Hove city council, described it as an opportunity to create “a city of this century”.

The developers hope to start work in January 2007, with construction completed five years later.

An artist’s impression of Frank Gehry’s controversial vision for the seaside town of Hove, Sussex, with its futuristic ‘ crumpled’ residential towers

Buildings on the King Alfred site await demolition, the start of a fi ve- year redevelopment plan Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain