Four student housing blocks up to 15 storeys high were granted planning permission by councillors this afternoon (Wednesday 5 April).
The blocks, containing 566 student rooms, are due to be built at Moulsecoomb Place, next to Brighton University’s campus in Lewes Road.
One councillor, concerned about the height of the blocks, said that the £150 million scheme was crass – and she criticised the proposed loss of a listed flint wall.
But Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee approved the plans which were submitted by the developer Cathedral and which involve demolishing the existing outdated student bedsits on the site.
Each of the proposed blocks would include a gym and wellbeing studio, with a public café planned for the ground floor of the tallest block.
Labour councillor Theresa Fowler, who represents Hollingdean and Stanmer ward, objected to the scheme. She said that the proposed blocks would overshadow residents and criticised the destruction of the flint wall.
Councillor Fowler was concerned about the grade II listed Georgian manor house and tithe barn which are expected to become a new “hub”, with a pub, 10 guest bedrooms and event space.
The tithe barn would continue to house the Moulsecoomb Social Club.
Councillor Fowler said: “To surround this building with tower blocks, which would dominate and overshadow these buildings, is just a crass proposal.
“The people of Brighton and Hove and the surrounding area of Lewes Road have had enough of tower blocks.”
Cathedral founder Richard Upton told the council’s Planning Committee at Hove Town Hall that he had worked in the area for 17 years.
Mr Upton said that his company – Cathedral’s owner U+I – was responsible for award-winning projects in Circus Street and at Preston Barracks.
He said: “We have listened carefully to ward councillors, the neighbours, members and to leaders of the local community over many years – and we know higher education is one of the principle economic drivers in the city.
“There is a significant shortfall of student bedrooms with Brighton which will continue to hurt both universities and the city by placing pressure on existing housing stock.”
Mr Upton, chief development officer at U&I, now part of Land Securities, said that student housing should be next to universities – not in areas that were next to or suitable for housing.
Conservative councillor Carol Theobald was unhappy about the height of the tallest buildings and abstained from voting on the application although she backed listed building consent.
Councillor Theobald said that the 15-storey block would be up the hill from Lewes Road and would appear to be even taller.
She said: “I just think we’re going back to the ’60s and ’70s. To my mind, that’s too high. If only they’d just evened it and had three blocks of nine (storeys) – something lower.”
Labour councillor Clare Moonan said that the flats would be high density but added that student housing was needed close to the university.
Councillor Moonan said: “It is regrettable, the loss of the flint wall, but we have to offset that by bringing two listed buildings back into how they would have been more historically by removing later additions and making them open and accessible to the public which they haven’t been for a long time.
“Having a green space that would be open to the public in a dense area of the city is very positive.”
Green councillor Siriol Hugh-Jones said that the “massing” was concentrated in one area to protect the manor house and tithe barn.
Councillor Hugh-Jones said: “Unless we are prepared to build with some higher density, we’re not going to protect our greenfield sites.
“This is a completely brownfield site and I wish that we had more applications that are as sensitive as this one.”
The committee voted unanimously in favour of “listed building consent” and 6-0 in favour of the wider scheme, with one abstention.
More student blocks are only a benefit if the council removes an equivalent number of rooms in HIMOs.
Good news. Students bring lots of money to the city. A lot more than the affordable housing benefits crew
Bravo….Arthur, Bravo….we all agree, all this shambolic old architecture should be bulldozed and the peaceful surroundings built on because the entitled property pigs(not exactly genius making innocents build up your portfolio! Is it?) need more characterless Lego builds to increase your earnings….shameful.
Once again, more bloody student blocks!!!
It’s bloody outrageous!
Why aren’t the Greens building homes for people that live and work for the pittance local supermarkets pay and yet have to pay ever increasing Council tax just so that the Green Council can student ghettorise Brighton, and then increase the student vote which is invariably in their favour to vote Green!!!
We will never be able to get the Green Party put!!!!
Brighton belongs to the people of Brighton!
NOT PART TIME RESIDENTS who’s only contribution to Brighton, is the never ending takeaways, off licences and take away litter they are nearly always responsible for!
I STRONGLY URGE every reader to the argus to complain to the Electoral Commission about the Green Council gerrymandering the vote in their favour to the detriment of every (full time) council tax paying resident, which incidentally is going up!!!
It’s scandalous!!!
The really serious gerrymanding that’s going on the moment is the introduction of a requirement to show ID before you vote. This is overwhelmingly slanted towards older demographics – you can show your senior citizen’s bus card, but not your student ID. It’s going to drive down turnout at these upcoming elections, and some people will be denied their democratic right. This is the work of the national, Tory, government.
By the 2021 census the student population of B&H was just over 14%, and of course young people overall have a lousy record at turning out anyway. The idea that Greens get elected in Brighton solely as a result of this section of the population is just fanciful.
Clive
So students don’t have any other forms of ID then ?
They don’t drive or travel abroad?
In answer to Mart Burt: of course most students will have some form of valid ID, but that’s not the point. The list of acceptable ID includes five items that apply only to the over-60s, and nothing for younger demographics. If that’s not an attempt to make it more difficult for younger people to vote, then it certainly looks like it. Plus a lot of people of all ages just won’t be aware of the new requirement, which is totally unnecessary and against the traditions of this country.
This would only be true if students paid council tax, income tax and did not generate a lot of expensive clean up and repair expense in their wake. You live in a fantasy idea of students financial value to anyone other than univerity coffers and landlord bank accounts.
Arthur q
Seriously ?
Have a reality check, students do not contribute anything towards council taxes and very few pay any taxes at all, therefore, only the establishments they visit actually benefit.
Those on benefits actually have to pay some form of council taxes so are more welcome than the childish morons that think screaming out a four letter words that starts with C at 2am in morning and expect everyone else to clear up their discarded crap all over the city.
You dream on.
That isn’t fair. Firstly they and their parents who in the case of overseas students are often very wealthy do spend a lot in the city. Specifically, in restaurants, bars, clubs and shops which generate employment and also this trade helps them stay afloat and we all benefit from this. Secondly, high student numbers draw employers like Amex to the City as it makes it easier for many firms to recruit.
More planning lunacy increasing traffic chaos along Lewes Road causing more pollution. Also further creating an enclave of unsuitable buildings which will further emphasise increased wind deflection affecting quality of life of local residents. In addition no doubt increasing the burden on our sewage system some of the excess will no doubt foul our beaches plus excess pressure on our aquifers, local services such as NHS,GPs and refuse collection. Sorry folks but the lunatics have taken over our City Council .About time this Augean Stable of lunacy was cleared .
I’m so glad I left Brighton, it’s such a dump.
Gerrymandering by planning department. All to keep Mx Lucas in power by concentrating the easily persuaded in one area. Sad to see democracy being so debased by a bunch of carpet baggers. Hopefully there will be an SNP moment to stop the rot.
The Circus Street development is always described as award winning. Apart from for building the maximum of tower blocks in the smallest area I don’t know why it wins any prizes.
It’s bleak with dark alleys, a few withered sapling which get no sunlight and student flats with a view of other student flats.
Moolescomb will win awards from the same industry that built Circus St
The approval of the student housing blocks was inevitable given Brighton council’s seeming endless war on the local residents.
The creation of these so called student areas (now most of the Lewes and London Roads) effectively makes non-places of whole areas of the town and non-citizens of those who still live there. Moreover the erection of these soulless blocks constitutes a not too subtle attempt to erase the history of the Lewes Road area as a neighbourhood where all sorts of people once co-existed.
Green Councillor Hugh-Jones said: “Unless we are prepared to build with some higher density, we’re not going to protect our Greenfield sites” _ Sorry aren’t the greens planning on building on two nature reserves (not that I expect these projects are likely to go ahead – they’re not for students) whilst reserving all the Brownfield sites for students or luxury apartments for “young professionals”.
It seems that there is now no hope of ordinary working people in Brighton ever finding an affordable home to live in whilst this endless pandering to the whims of the overweening Brighton University continues.
Bear Road resident
It’s fast becoming a Student city with local residents just being the cash cow to try to keep the city afloat.
If you’re a worker or resident you get nothing.
With the increasing flawed policies, high parking prices, house prices lack of basic service’s and what have you, Brighton will become a ghost town. We’ve had so many ‘Student’ accommodation built it’s beyond a joke and I would like to know how many ‘HMO’s have been released back into general use.
Apparently there are 600 less student HMOs this year than two years ago
https://brightonjournal.co.uk/student-house-numbers-drop-sharply-in-brighton-and-hove/
But these 600 properties may still be HMOs, just not accommodating students
The site in question is far from the most credible. It also appears to copy material from sites like this one. I dont know whether it has permission to do so. Mind you, I don’t always trust what the council says. I watched a planning committee webcast when a map of HMOs was shown for a street I know, and several known HMOs were omitted.
There is only one answer every true Brightonian, if there are any left still living in Brighton, must vote TORY. [Dream on, i know it will never happen]. Incidentally a vote for an independent will probably only let the Greens or Labour get in again. Another four years of the same unjoined up thinking. It’s a pity the Tories aren’t more radical and outspoken. Out with the woke nutters and bring in some plain old common sense.
It seems that the Tories couldn’t even produce a full slate of candidates and only came up with some people at the last gasp. Their record in Rottingdean Coastal, where they were totally AWOL and let everyone down, leaving the excellent Independent to pick up all the pieces, which she did, was abysmal. The new Kemptown ward had no idea who the Tory candidates were until nominations closed a couple of days ago, and we still know absolutely nothing about one of them, a web-trawl being necessary to find out anything. So, in Kemptown, we have an Indie, and two each of the usual parties, with Lab, Greens, Lib Dems and Tories all saying much the same thing about what they want to do, but it will never get done, obviously.
Perhaps if Steve Bell wasn’t so busy with working for his wife, he might actually put his head above the parapet in B&H and come to the party.
In terms of a planning policy, the (unlikely) election of a Tory-led council would make zero difference, given the way that the nationally-set rules are massively loaded in favour of developers. Remind me: who’s been running the national government for the last 13 years, and which firms give that party a large amount of their funding?
What about council houses for people on universal credit
What about extra uni credit for people struggling
I would be interested if someone could show me where ‘the journal got these figures from: I found the following on the council’s website and, according to the journal’s information, the number of HMOs (in total not just student) seems to have dropped to more than the council claims to have in the first place.
217
Policy CP21 Student Accommodation and Houses in
Multiple Occupation
4230 The city has a high number of HMOs, partly as the supply of purpose-
built accommodation has not matched the expansion of the student population
and partly due to housing prices and availability within the city. The private
sector has responded positively to the increasing demand for student housing
and there has been a significant conversion of family housing to student
occupied HMOs in many neighbourhoods. Another aim of the Student
Housing Strategy is to support and enhance the quality and management of
housing and residential environments within HMO dominated
neighbourhoods.
Planning permission for houses in multiple occupation
A ‘House in Multiple Occupation (HMO)’ is a house that contains 3 or more unrelated occupants who share basic amenities such as a bathroom and kitchen. Examples include bedsits, shared houses, lodgings and accommodation for workers or employees.
There are around 4,000 licensed HMOs in the Brighton & Hove.
I personally wouldn’t take what the journal says on trust. I’ve read several stories that just look rewrites of material from more credible sites.
Building more and more tower blocks for students doesn’t free up housing for local people – it just allows the universities to increase their student intake to make more money (preferably from overseas students since they are fleeced more than the local ones) and puts extra pressure on over stretched local amenities – where’s the infrastructure for such dense overcrowding when local doctors, dentists, nurseries, etc etc are already at breaking point?…