The council’s joint venture with Hyde housing association has agreed to buy a plot of land in Hove with a view to building hundreds of low-cost homes.
The owners, Moda and Apache Capital, are selling the three-acre site at the top of Sackville Road which has planning permission for a “care community” of 260 flats up to nine storeys high.
But, instead of the “care community”, Hyde has been working on plans to build 306 affordable homes – up to 10 storeys high – on the three-acre site, subject to planning permission.
Brighton and Hove City Council approved a budget of up to £30 million a year ago with a view to buying and developing the land through its joint venture with Hyde, known as Homes for Brighton and Hove.
The new scheme is expected to cost about £50 million overall, with the council funding 183 flats, to be let for a “social rent”. Hyde is expected to market 123 homes for shared ownership.
The joint venture has already built 242 homes in Coldean – at Bluebell Heights in Denman Place – and 104 homes in Clarendon Place, in Portslade.
The £160 million Moda scheme includes 564 build-to-rent flats on what was originally a nine-acre plot made up of the old Sackville Trading Estate and neighbouring coal yard.
The owners said: “Apache Capital and Moda have agreed to sell the land plot adjacent to its build-to-rent neighbourhood to Homes for Brighton and Hove – a joint venture between Brighton and Hove City Council and housing association Hyde Group.
“The joint venture will see the delivery of more than 300 much-needed affordable homes, subject to planning permission.
“The land sold was the final plot on the former Sackville Road industrial estate. The deal marks the final phase of Apache and Moda’s build-to-rent (BTR) neighbourhood Moda, Hove Central.
“The 564-home rental neighbourhood opened its doors in 2024, bringing with it new public realm landscaped gardens, retail and leisure spaces which cover 60 per cent of the total development site.
“The new affordable dwellings being built by Homes for Brighton and Hove will be added to the affordable homes already being delivered by Moda and Apache at Hove Central.
“Hove Central also includes a new office building which will bring much-needed grade A space to the surrounding community, alongside a range of retail and leisure opportunities fronting on to new publicly accessible streets and squares.”
Hyde Group development director Jaime Buckley said: “This acquisition will enable us to deliver much-needed genuinely affordable housing on a centrally located site and will make a significant contribution to meeting our target of creating 1,000 affordable homes for local people.”
Moda Group executive chair Tony Brooks said: “From site acquisition and planning through to delivery and long-term operation, we have worked closely with Brighton and Hove City Council and the city’s wider community to deliver a neighbourhood that meets its needs and embraces the vibrant spirit of this amazing location.
“The sale of this final plot to an affordable housing provider is a fitting conclusion, helping to address the city’s housing need while reinforcing our long-term commitment as a partner and neighbour to Brighton and Hove.
“We look forward to seeing these much-needed homes come to fruition as part of the wider masterplan at Moda, Hove Central.”
Hyde hopes that the council will approve the joint venture’s plans in the coming months so that work might start over the winter, with a view to completion in 2028.
The Boomerati will have fits over people having the same access to homes they did. This will not sit well with them at all, and so many are just meddling for decades into old age, abusing planning processes to stifle the very source of their pensions – working people.
Well it will have to be more migrants instead, as 500,000 young Brits left the UK last year alone, you’re bleeding them dry.
Stop talking nonsense – no way 500,000 young people left this country!
That figure isn’t even remotely accurate. The ONS estimates that approximately 90,000 UK citizens emigrated last year across all age groups; nowhere near 500,000 young people alone. Lying will do you no good here, Mark.
Assuming M. Fry is right (and that the figures quoted can be substantiated) I wonder where all the water is coming from (and sewage going to), and the electricity, gas and the doctors, dentists and other vital services miraculously going to materialise from? Of course, this doesn’t really matter as Brighton and Hove Council will be able to rake in a lot of money in property and other taxes so that’s what really counts.
It’s mostly being skimmed by capitalists the Tories sold all of our assets off too.
Now we are borrowing back money at extortionate rates to replace housing Maggie sold off.
Just like everything the Tories sold off, socialise the losses and privatise the profits.
Your generation caused this decay, you’ve completely sabotaged subsequent generations who now can’t acquire any assets, and you have the hubris to blame it on the migrants paying your pensions because you’ve bankrupted your grandchildren.
Your generation isn’t well liked, most despise the wealth inequality and decay your lot has created. Why are pensioners earning up to 35k with mortgage paid homes being handed £300 from the bank accounts of working people stuck on sub 30k salaries, with rents taking up half of every penny that is left after the treasurer ransacks the income at Bout 25%.
Imagine nearly all of your earnings going out of your bank account the day after the salary went in, then being left with double digit poverty wages for increasingly expensive food after your lot utterly failed at extracting this country from being completely dependant on Russian hydrocarbons.
Are your lot thick or something mate?
Now you’re going to make it way, way worse by putting friends of Trump in power by voting for fascists.
If only there were some kind of plague that would take out the boomers and leave everyone else untouched.
Oh no, that’s right, we threw the eco omy in the garbage to protect you, and this is how you repay us?
Your generation are by and large more damaging to the UK than 1940s Germany managed to inflict. Buildings falling apart, poverty wages, not enough homes for people to live in, brown rivers, a third of our entire taxation is spent on triple locked pensions, your carers, and those forced to care for you, while you sit in mortgage paid homes with huge amounts of equity available to you.
We would have been better off under German rule, at least they had a functional economy and people were not starving to protect your wealth.
Framing everything as a generational war only divides people who want the same thing: fairer taxation, secure housing, and a liveable planet. And for what it’s worth, the same older people you condemn are also the ones using food banks, dying in mouldy flats, and struggling to get GP appointments.
Inflammatory and inappropriate rhetoric won’t get you anywhere.
Sounds spot on to me to be honest
Not all of us, sir, some of us are existing on £1.000 a month, b7t yes many do have lots, just not myself, for various reasons.
It would appear that Mr Fry is running short on his meds again.
Either that or they are leaving a very bitter taste.
I see that Mark Fry is back with on his insane; delusional rants yet again – more total nonsense from ones of life’s biggest losers jealous of anybody who has worked hard and made something of themselves. Why no grow up and try getting a life Mark instead of blaming everybody else for the fact you are a complete and utter cretin…
Great to hear there will be more social housing available. Would those with familial links to Brighton and Hove be getting priority?
Also, M Fry, stop blaming everyone but yourself for life’s hardships. People do not get to choose when they are born, play the hand you are dealt and get on with it.
Affordable not social homes, not the same thing at all.
Please just acquire the site entirely for social housing to address the city’s list, do not go near Shared Ownership which is becoming quite the scandal. People trapped in flats that they cannot sell with ever increasing management fees.
Definitely more work that needs to be done with Shared Ownership on a national level. Regulaing the service charges, guaranteeing the right to independent resales, making staircasing affordable and practical, having a fair repairs standard, changing rent escalation rules, maybe even a right to convert to a full tenancy after a qualifying period would be a good start.
The primary reason for increases in service charges is the introduction of the Building Safety Act and all the regulatory requirements attached to it, such as fire risk assessments, fire precaution works and preparing building safety cases. It will be interesting to see how the government regulate to limit service charge costs which are as a result statutory legislation that they have imposed.
Hopefully will be fingers crossed
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
— Benito Mussolini
Hyde is backed by Homes England and Lloyds bank. God, we’re stupid.
Where is the council going to find the money it is broke