School closures and the falling number of children in Brighton and Hove primaries have prompted a call for the council to adopt more family-friendly policies.
Conservative leader Alistair McNair plans to propose a motion on the issue at a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting in the coming week.
Councillor McNair said that there had been a 22 per cent drop in children aged 0 to 4 living in Brighton and Hove from 2011 to 2021.
And the proportion of children and young people aged 0 to 19 was 20.5 per cent compared with 23.1 per cent both for the south east and England as a whole.
The number of children in primary schools has been falling since 2019, leaving hundreds of spaces going spare.
The council has cut the intake at several schools including Balfour, Mile Oak, Moulsecoomb and Westdene primary schools and Downs Infant School.
Six more schools have been asked to reduce their intake from September next year – Brunswick, St Luke’s, Saltdean and Goldstone primary schools and Stanford and Patcham infant schools.
The council decided to close two schools from August – St Bartholomew’s Church of England (CofE) Primary School, in Brighton, and St Peter’s Community Primary and Nursery School, in Portslade.
At the annual budget meeting, the Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey said that proposals put before councillors included the prospect of closing six schools because of falling numbers, with the administration opting for the two smallest.
Councillor McNair said: “The falling number of children is one of the most urgent concerns in the city. Schools are closing and will continue to close without policies to attract families.
“We realise that swimming pools are being planned. And some housing – though often flats which are less attractive to families – is on stream.
“We also realise that new projects take time. However, we see little evidence that families are front and centre of the council’s thinking.
“We have also had policies for many years that are deeply off-putting to families – very high council tax and high parking charges, deteriorating parks, tents allowed in parks, graffiti and the generally unkempt state of the city.
“It is clear that the incoming cabinet and their long-term plans will need to put families front and centre if our city is to have any prospects of long-term growth.
“Vulnerable individuals and communities, older people, people with disabilities and black and racially minoritised communities are quite rightly frequently referred to in equalities assessments in reports.
“However, given the dire impact of a falling birth rate, coupled with the fact that Brighton has so much to offer families, it seems clear to the Conservative group that more strategic thinking is required.
“Putting families as a separate category in ‘equality impact statements’ in council reports would be one small step in the right direction. We look forward to the Labour administration’s plans for family-centred growth.”
Councillor McNair said that ways to attract families to Brighton and Hove included building more family-sized homes and improving infrastructure including NHS and doctors’ surgeries.
He wants officials to prepare a report setting out options for policies to make Brighton and Hove an attractive place for families and young people.
He also wants families with children under 18 to become a category in the council’s equalities impact assessments.
Councillor McNair is due to propose his motion at a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (29 March). The meeting is scheduled to start at 4.30pm and to be webcast on the council’s website.
McNair disingenuously forgets that much of the issues he raised were caused as a direct result of the Conservatives actions in central government.
Ha! You said the ‘disingenuous’ word!
I claim my prize!
I do get to use it quite a lot these days. Willful ignorance and omission is a common articulation I find.
What allowing junkies to inject in the town centre so people with kids don’t feel safe often even going shopping in the town centre. I am no fan of the conservatives but people I know moving away say it is because the schools are poor and the town feels like it has really gone downhill. This is a Labour and Green party issue.
There is even someone who allegedly raped children and women begging often outside H and M yet the police and council think this is ok. It took the council a month to get rid of a paedophile rough sleeper in a tent out of a park frequented by children.
I mean, we can talk about how CON lack of a housing strategy has caused more homelessness, and that being homeless increases a person’s risk of injecting substantially, so yes. I maintain my position.
Not everything and everyone however, let’s not talk absolutes. That’s a CON trait, and things are rarely as such.
ally mcskidmark
Don’t forget disabled-friendly and elderly-friendly. Council seems particularly hostile to these demographics.
Definitely seems that way if you’re just going by what gets reported on here Barry. Which, of course, is always going to be the bad cases, because who wants to read an article that says “Disabled people catered for with no issues”. Comes across as a little condescending, doesn’t it?
It’s become a town designed for affluent Londoners escaping for a ‘better life’ near the sea where they can work from home sipping matcha tea and riding their 3k electric bicycles when they choose to venture to Waitrose with no kids or the ability to choose a private education . Houses constantly being built with questionable people permissions, with no new infrastructure to support this but if you have money to pay 500k for a 2 bed, presumably you aren’t worried about local LA schools, GPs, NHS dentists, cost of parking, cost of council tax etc. This problem has been escalating for 10 years plus, let’s not blame just the greens and labour and pretend this has nothing to do with the Tories !
Quite, there’s a lot to suggest that a lack of a proper housing strategy from the conservative government as attributed quite significantly to the issue we have now with housing, along with the widely regarded by experts as the mismanagement of the economy causing huge inflation and fiscal drag; and we haven’t seen any deflation, an arguable much more important target then reduced inflation, which is equidistant to saying it’s still bad, but not as bad.