Picture it: you’re strolling along Brighton’s seafront, maybe with an ice cream, when your eye catches something ridiculous, unsettling, and oddly theatrical. Hanging from a heavy timber structure—something like a gallows—there’s a huge shark, nine and a half metres long, made of glossy fibreglass, suspended over a pirate-themed hole on the Jungle Rumble Adventure Golf course. It is not a real shark, of course, but it looks dramatic enough to stop you in your tracks. It looms over the crazy golf with its mouth open, frozen in a kind of permanent, toothy accusation. For a while, it was just a weird piece of seaside fun. But now this fibreglass giant has become the centre of a very peculiar planning row: because a number of local people are insisting that having a shark dangling there, like a criminal swung from a gibbet, is not only ugly—it’s offensive, and possibly even harmful to the way we teach children about the natural world.
The whole thing began last August, when the shark was installed at the course, which sits close to Brighton’s famous seafront. At first, perhaps nobody minded all that much. Then the council got in touch, as councils do when strange structures appear without paperwork, and Jungle Rumble applied for retrospective planning permission last month. That is when the row really began to bite. A heritage assessment—the kind of document that usually just talks about sightlines and conservation areas—suddenly found itself describing a giant shark hanging from a noose-like structure. In an odd way, the report defended the shark: yes, it admitted, it is “clearly visible” from the beach, from Madeira Drive, and from the listed Madeira Terrace. Butthen it added that the seafront has always been a place of recreation, that crazy golf belongs there, and that this dramatic decoration is simply a “contemporary addition” to the area’s long-established playful character. In other words, the shark may be visible, but so are the other amusements; it fits in with the carnival spirit of the seafront, rather than damaging the historic East Cliff Conservation Area around it.
Yet the objections are not really about technical planning law. They are about something more emotional, more philosophical, entrance perhaps more moral. One particularly striking comment, submitted on August 29th, made the argument that the shark is being unfairly treated. The faux creature, the commenter said, appears to depict a marine animal “as a criminal having been slaughtered for no reason.” That is the phrase that seems to have crystallised the whole upset: not just that the shark is unsightly, but that by hanging it from a gallows-like frame over a pirate-themed hole, the golf course is turning an animal into a symbol of execution. “Sharks are a vital form of marine life, ” the comment continues, “and should be protected if we are to regain healthy seas which can help mend our planet.” There is, they point out, a wonderful and genuine story of sea rewilding happening in British waters, with species returning and ecosystems slowly recovering. And against that backdrop, having a giant dead-looking shark strung up in a children’s play area feels, they argue, completely inappropriate. The commenter urges everyone to think about what we are teaching the next generation: not to hunt and destroy vital species, they say, but to“educate our kids to protect and fight to preserve our wildernesses and seas.”
There is perhaps something a little easy about laughing at this objection. A fake shark on a mini-golf course is not exactly the same as a real shark being killed, and most people understand that Fantasy décor on a seaside attraction is not a serious campaign against marine life. But the commenter’s underlying point is not entirely silly either. Animals have become, often without us noticing, props in human stories: we put them in logos, in mascot costumes, in cartoonish scenes of danger and villainy, and sometimes we forget that they are real, living, breathing parts of the planet we share. The shark, in particular, has spent years being cast as the villain of the deep, a monster rather than a magnificent, complicated creature. So when a holiday business hangs a giant shark from a gallows over a pirate course, it taps into an old, tired storyline—one in which nature is something to be conquered, mocked, or strung up for entertainment. For the people who caredeeply about marine conservation, that is not just a planning issue; it is a symptom of a wider attitude, a tiny part of the story in which we treat animals as objects rather than fellow inhabitants of the earth.
Of course, from the golf course’s point of view, they have probably done nothing wrong, at least intentionally. Crazy golf courses are supposed to be silly; they are stuffed with dinosaurs, pirates, monkeys, and now enormous sharks, all designed to make people smile while they putt. The shark was clearly meant to be part of the theme—a pirate scene involving a captured shark, perhaps, or a play on Jaws, or just a bit of adrenaline to make the putting feel more exciting. There is no evidence the company wanted to offend anyone or make a statement about wildlife. They seem to have been caught off balance by the outcry, and perhaps by the sheer strangeness of finding themselves at the centre of one of those local controversies that eventually crawls into the national news. Yet in response, they have done what any reasonable business would do: commissioned the heritage assessment, submitted a planning application, and let the documents speak. They have even passed biodiversity checks, which found that, because the shark sits within an existing developed site, it has no substantial impact on the local environment. In other words, from a purely ecological standpoint, the shark is harmless—it is made of fibreglass, it eats nobody, it is not frightening away the local wildlife, and it has already been built, so there are no additional carbon emissions from construction. The matter, at a technical level, might seem straightforward: it is a decorative object on a commercial leisure site, visible from the seafront, but not harming anyone.
And yet the argument refuses to go away, because once you start talking about sharks, about conservation, about children, and about the stories we tell, you cannot simply reduce it to planning law. The commenter who called the shark“offensive” was not just worried about aesthetics or heritage. They were worried about meaning. What does it mean when we hang a predator from a gallows? What does it teach a six-year-old, standing there with a putter, looking up at that toothy mouth? Perhaps it teaches them that sharks are scary, that they belong to a world of pirates and monsters, that killing them is something to joke about. Or perhaps it teaches them nothing at all—perhaps children are clever enough to know that a fibreglass shark on a mini-golf course is not real life. But in an era when our oceans are struggling, when species are disappearing, when there is a real and hopeful movement to rewild our seas, choosing to make a shark into a joke feels at least a little out of step. The objector’s language might be over the top—there is talk of slaughter, of criminals, of the fate of the planet—but behind that excess is a genuine question about how we represent nature in public spaces, especially in places meant for children.
Brighton, of course, is no stranger to odd seaside installations, public arguments, and fiercely held local opinions. The city is used to drawing its own path, and the seafront in particular is a place where the serious and the ridiculous constantly bump into one another. A giant shark hanging over a pirate mini-golf course is, in some ways, exactly the kind of thing Brighton might love—mildly anarchic, visually striking, conversation-starting. But it is also exactly the kind of thing that might make people stop and think, and perhaps begin to argue about what kind of place they want the seafront to be. Do they want it to be a place of pure amusement, where everything is available as a backdrop for fun? Or do they want it to be a place that reflects their values, including care for the natural world, even while playing? There is no easy answer to that. A city that welcomes people with radically different beliefs is bound to have this kind of collision: the entertainment company’s desire to create an eye-catching attraction versus the conservationist’s wish to avoid turning animals into instruments of violence. Both sides believe they are acting for the good. One wants to bring visitors, create joy, run a successful business. The other wants to protect the natural world and raise children who respect it. And in between sits the shark, a nine-and-a-half-metre lump of painted fibreglass, silently absorbing all the anger, the confusion, anda good deal of the laughter.
So what is likely to happen? For now, the decision is in the hands of Brighton & Hove City Council, who will consider the planning application some time after. They could grant retrospective permission, accepting the argument that the shark fits within the recreational character of the area and harms nothing. They could refuse it, agreeing with the objectors that it is inappropriate, ugly, or offensive, and order it to be removed or altered. Or they could do what councils often do in awkward cases: delay, ask for more information, find some small technicality to hive off a bit of time. But whatever the formal decision is, the real outcome may already have happened. The argument itself has made people think about sharks in a way they probably did not expect to represented on a crazy golf course. It has turned an ordinary piece of seaside kitsch into a strange kind of symbol—of everything we feel about animals, about entertainment, about the stories we inherit and the stories we choose to replace them with. The shark, hanging there above the pirate hole, is no longer just an object. It is a question addressed to everyone who looks at it: what do you see? A joke? A monster? A crime scene? Or a creature that deserves better, even in a game? Perhaps the most human thing about this whole affair is that we cannot seem to make up our minds. We want our seaside amusements to be wild and funny, but we also want to be kind to the world; we want our children to laugh, but we also want them to learn; we want sharks to be terrifying, at least in stories, but we also know they are beautifuland necessary. And so the shark hangs there, suspended not just from a gallows-like frame, but between all these contradictory feelings, waiting for the council to issue its verdict—and for us, maybe, to decide what version of ourselves we want to live with. In the end, whether it stays or goes is almost beside the point. The debate has already done something odd: it has made a plastic shark into one of the most talked-about creatures in Brighton, and it has reminded us that even in the most light-hearted places, the way we treat animals is never just a joke.
