Too many new homes are built for oligarchs rather than would-be council tenants and young people in Brighton and Hove, according to a leading councillor.
Amanda Evans, who chairs a Brighton and Hove City Council scrutiny committee, said that even if “the right number” of homes were built, too few were for young people who needed housing.
The Labour councillor said: “Some … are flats built for the council at social rents and others are flats built for oligarchs to live in for one week a year. No one else can afford them – and they’re not equal value.”
Councillor Evans was speaking as the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed preparations to update the City Plan – a strategic blueprint for the number and location of future homes, workplaces and other facilities.
The City Plan also contains a series of planning policies – and the council’s Planning Committee refers to these when deciding planning applications.
The council is preparing to update its City Plan Part One which was agreed in 2016 and covered the years up to 2030. The refreshed version will look ahead to 2040.
A linked document, City Plan Part Two, was approved two years ago and contains more detail in support of some of the broader aims and policies in the Part One document.
The council’s head of planning Nicola Hurley told the committee that the City Plan needed to be updated in part because it could be overtaken by real-world changes.
For example, private build-to-rent schemes, such as the Moda project in Sackville Road, Hove, were not on the cards when the City Plan Part One was drawn up.
The process is set out in law. Ms Hurley said: “There are no draft policies at this stage because the early stage in consultation will frame what the policies will be later.
“There will then be a further round of consultation once policies have been drafted and then there will be a further round of consultation prior to the submission to government.”
Community and voluntary sector representative Mark Strong said that the process needed to reach children and young people because of the way that the City Plan would affect their lives.
He said that, in the past, few people had responded to consultations about the strategic plan, adding: “Hopefully, you’re going to have a bit more of an engaging engagement to try to reach out to people.”
He was told that those who would be contacted included the Brighton and Hove Youth Council and schools and sixth-form colleges.
Conservative councillor Ivan Lyons asked about housing quotas, saying that most new buildings going up in the city were flats – but houses were needed to keep or bring families here which might prevent more school closures.
Councillor Lyons said: “People are saying to us over and over again they don’t want flats.
“In terms of units, there are targets to hit but it’s the wrong type of properties that planning seem to be committing to for agreement to hit the units.”
He was told that the policies would be formed based on priorities – and the government had not yet revealed Brighton and Hove’s housing targets.
Labour councillor Tobias Sheard challenged Councillor Lyons, saying that working young people were struggling to make ends meet and wanted a home of their own but did not have time to fill out surveys.
He said: “There are places in the city where the price of a bedroom in an HMO (house in multiple occupation) costs the same as a four-bedroom house in Yorkshire.
“People aren’t concerned how pretty the flat is or how high it’s built. They care that they’ve got somewhere to live and call their own and make a plan for the future.”
As well as housing, the current City Plan includes policies aimed at protecting pubs and small shopping parades and preventing areas from becoming saturated with shared houses.
The committee was told that updated city plan for 2040 would be structured around eight topics
- Homes for everyone
- Sustainability and climate change
- A diverse and sustainable city economy
- Design and place-making
- Culture and tourism
- Healthy city and communities
- Biodiversity and green infrastructure
- Transport and infrastructure
An extended eight-week consultation was planned on the Your Voice section of the council’s website.
Hard copies of the consultation text will be available.
Unfortunately this article, and the councillors view, is way off the mark.
The new builds, initially planned when the market was booming, are actually not affordable to new home owners – or indeed to prospective landlords, wishing to rent out the property.
The rents are unaffordable for people on an average salary, and the old idea – that you spend a third of your income of housing costs – has gone out the window
For landlords, the return on the investment also does not add up, in terms of monthly rental paid as a percentage of the capital outlay, or in terms of the longer term asset value increase.
There’s also a massive scam, whereby the developers, after selling their expensive flats, create a second income by controlling the freehold and with ever-increasing monthly maintenance charges.
For owners and for the renters, the contract they sign up to milks them forever.
We do have a massive problem here, and for the next few years – but it’s not, simplistically, about rich people buying our new build flats as investments. For sure, they are being sold these properties, via enthusiastic marketing, with assessed profit or investment returns based on out of date figures.
There’s a lovely new seafront block of flats near me, where just two flats have been sold, despite the building work being completed six months ago.
Local estate agents say that individual freehold houses are still being sold, but that the market for flats is completely dead, due to mistrust, or down to out-of-control maintenance charges.
That sounds like the Shared Ownership model; whilst the idea is good, there’s been not an insignificant number of stories of spiralling maintenance costs and subsequently people being stuck in a property they only part-own, which people aren’t keen on buying.
Not to mention never being able to own it – fine if you are still working, but prices go up and so does the “buy out” fee. Not much fun on a state pension.
Gosh, I can’t imagine. Must be impossible on a state pension.
The flats built are too small and too expensive for a young family. Plenty of high-density cities manage to make apartment-living feasible and attractive for a family of 4, but England is hopeless in this regard. Developer greed is shortsighted. As a result, many 25+ year olds I know simply gave up and moved out of Brighton when they got married and started a family. And now our school are progressively shutting down.
There needs be more legislation in place to bring scrupulous construction companies and managing agents into line. It’s well over due and you have to question why .. someone else in charge is earning lots of £££££s!!
Although, on balance, construction costs have gone way up over the last couple of years in particular. Brexit did us no favours in this regard. You’re almost touching upon the formation of a CLT as a viable long-term solution to tackling housing, something you’ve thought about before?
Perhaps councillor Evans has learnt the meaning of the word oligarchy during her time as a Labour council in the city.
Otherwise, what data does she have on the number of oligarchs coming to Brighton and living in a flat for one week of the year before returning to their usual home/s. She’s suggesting something very different to the problem in the city with second homes and holiday lets. If this is what scrutiny looks like under Labour’s Cabinet system then that’s worrying.
I suspect few oligarchs live in Brighton. Mayfair perhaps…..
I know – which is why her comment looks really uninformed and very odd.
This Labour council refused to step in regarding a recent development which could have provided affordable housing. No social housing provider would take on the affordable housing the developer was supposed to provide, but the council could have made a decision to take it on themselves.
It’s often a case of councillors saying one thing, and doing another, especially with this current lot (and their colleagues in Westminster as we’re now seeing with Winter Fuel Allowance and tuition fees).
Yes – where are these oligarchs ? I assume here being used as a pejorative for rich people ? rather than part of an oligarchy being a member of a small ruling faction ? – that description could now fit the labor party after all.
Sounds like an outburst from an ideologue. And not a well informed one at that.
Indeed. Even weirder comment from when you consider how much this changed Labour Party LOVE rich people and cosying up to them for freebies.
It’s about time the local people were asked to join the citys meetings,and to glean the actual problem with housing allacation from them,to much housing stock has been sold of ( Illegally) by this council and it need investigation and remedy its not so long ago two brothers were caught at it ,who were in charge of housing and it’s still happening, then theres all the new builds that are unaffordable, taking up much needed land ,that should be allocated for council builds,,,its good old Joe bloggs,who gets caned up every time,a people’s forum is needed here,and damm quick the south coast are deemed as province’s and that’s why you can not afford the same as London,the cost of living here is the same as London,,? And in some instances a quarter percent dearer but the wages are two thirds less,and that’s a big problem
You’re absolutely right that local people should have more of a voice in the decision-making process, especially given the challenges the city faces with housing. The issue of unaffordable new builds taking up land that could be used for council homes is particularly frustrating. I think a people’s forum, as you suggest, would be a great way to hold decision-makers accountable and ensure local voices are heard. The disparity in wages compared to the cost of living on the South Coast, which mirrors London prices, only adds to the urgency.
Maybe the council should make the developer stick to agreement and provide social housing and not be bribed off as seems to happen with frightening boring regularity
It’s a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. What happens in reality though, and we’ll likely see this with the Gasworks as an example of this, is that the developer goes to appeal, and because the grounds that councils can reject a proposal are very limited in scope, more times than not, the appeal is upheld, and now the developer becomes free of any social obligations whatsoever.
Legally speaking, it is very much tipped in the favour of developers, with councils having little power over what happens, beyond delaying tactics. Sometimes one has to consider how badly one wants to lose pragmatically, and what you describe as bribes may simply be losing less, so it can affect a more positive change elsewhere.
Councillors also knowingly let developers off the hook when it comes to affordable homes targets – the Labour council recently “reluctantly agreed that a developer should pay £500,000 towards the cost of the council buying or building homes rather than include 14 “affordable” flats in a £16 million scheme near the Seven Dials”
Basically letting the developer hold out for as much profit as possible, to the detriment of the desperate need for affordable housing. Whilst councillors let developers off the hook like this, we stand no chance of getting real “change” that so many politicians promised ahead of the election. What a shambles!
Article here on dreadful decision to let developer off hook and put profit over moral responsibility to tackle affirdable housing: https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2024/09/05/developer-to-pay-500k-instead-of-providing-affordable-homes/#:~:text=Councillors%20have%20reluctantly%20agreed%20that,scheme%20near%20the%20Seven%20Dials.
The argument for the reluctance was very much £500k as a certainty or potentially nothing pushing for higher amounts. It is a difficult decision when you consider it like that. Degrees of losing sometimes are the only options available.
No – the £500K was the fob off amount the developer paid because they said no one came forward to take on the social housing / housing association aspect. The council could have come forward themselves to be the social housing partner – they chose not to. The council did have choices.
The planning decision wasn’t a political decision because there was little option at that point, but the bit before it was – ie any decision made by the administration to not take on the social housing aspect themselves was political choice. They chose not to do this, and to get themselves into a corner where being paid off by the developer was the only real option left.
The plan is to fill the seafront full of towerblocks for rich second home owners. It’s all in their own documents if you look them up. Even the spaces between buildings. Ignore the word salad to make it sound nice, as long as it fits their ‘sustainability’ criteria, it can be as tall and ugly as it likes.
Local Planning Policy
Brighton & Hove City Plan Part One (adopted in 2016) Policy CP12 Urban Design is the
key and overarching policy regarding development design along with CP13 Streets and
Open Spaces that focuses on the design of spaces between buildings. These policies
seek to raise the standard of and achieve excellence in sustainable design and
construction of buildings and external spaces in the city.
There are also a number of retained policies in Chapter 3 of the 2005 Brighton & Hove
Local Plan that deal with design issues. These policies set out how good design in new
development can help to create interest, diversity and a more pleasant environment.
The retained 2005 Local Plan policies will be superseded by Brighton & Hove City Plan
Part Two (CPP2) which is at a late stage in its preparation. The UDF provides
supplementary guidance relevant to some of these policies, in particular DM18 High
quality design and places. This policy requires an integrated, design-led approach to
proposals where place making and sustainable development are considered as one
Most new builds are beyond locals to buy. I think many of the new builds are bought up by foreigners just to get money into the UK then lie empty. There are so many new builds that are always mostly in darkness at night in other words not lived in.
Also we have properties such as on the Drive in HOVE that have been boarded up for years, i suppose the council don’t do anything about them as listed structures they are in charge of are fenced off or in decline.
Those houses on The Drive are owned by the van Hoogstratens i think so the council are most likely too scared to do anything for fear of……
Instead of asking a developer for a proportional quantity of sustainable housing in a development, how about stipulating that a proportionally sized block of flats be built on council owned land in another location and ownership of them handed to the council. It might then be possible for the council to find a housing association willing to manage a complete block instead of just a few mixed in with the other properties. Not sure how costings would work out but a block of say, six, one or two bedroom flats would presumably be cheaper than six one or two bedroom flats in an overpriced development.
At one point my Parents said to me, that Council should be able to help everyone.
But if you earn some kind of money, but not Millionaires you can’t really get on the list to bid, there isn’t enough within the City to bid on.
More properties are needed for single Men & Woman not just those that have families.
Does anyone actually believe that politicians might do government or council work that benefits people in general ??? or even get the basics to work, like roads, NHS, post office, pensions that relate, education and trade traning, I think most of them got the job then went into deep hibernation,
I have never regarded councilors as politicians, try as they may to look like them.
They are elected to serve us, not the dogma of a political party that has little regard for them in any case.
Politician, Councillors, Nimbies, Lobbyists, et al, just taking tax payers money giving little or nothing in return. They are but the Titles they wear although most of them would be hard pushed to understand they are part of a service organ to ensure public services work.
Same here Chris, the good Ward Councillors get on with the job, serve their consistency, and avoid wasting energy on political attacks on parties.
Affordable homes make people feel safe to raise families in.
Unfortunately, predator practices causes people to barely survive.
Failure to vaccinate the virus causes systematic organ failures
(correct me if I am wrong, I am not a virologists)
Amanda Evans is not credible. There are no oligarchs in this city, much less “Too many new homes are built for oligarchs”. Where is the evidence of oligarchs inhabiting this city Amanda? There is none. There are some wealthy people and pop starts/movies stars, but no oligarchs. You continue to discredit yourself with inaccuracies and hyperbole.