Protesters brought a Brighton and Hove City Council cabinet meeting to a halt this afternoon (Thursday 13 November).
Acorn Brighton, which campaigns for fairer housing, unfurled banners from the public balcony and called for a bailiff-free Britain.
The group disrupted the meeting for about 15 minutes, with councillors leaving the council chamber at Hove Town Hall until the protesters had left.
Labour council leader Bella Sankey said that they had interrupted the meeting with the cabinet poised to approve extra funding for hundreds of truly affordable homes on the old Sackville Trading Estate.
Acorn Brighton said: “Despite agreeing to work towards reducing bailiff use, a recent FoI (freedom of information request) revealed that last year Brighton and Hove City Council used bailiffs 11,000 times, a massive 120 per cent increase on the year before.
“So today’s Acorn Brighton action was a statement of intent. If our members can’t live in peace, the council can’t meet in peace.”
Councillor Sankey said that the campaign group had cited out-of-date figures and that the council had since changed its policy.
The council said that it used bailiffs only as a last resort including when all other means of recovering unpaid monies had failed.
Acorn Brighton chair Keziah Hall, who was present at the town hall, said: “It’s a disgrace that this so-called Labour council has sent 11,000 bailiffs to threaten the most vulnerable in our city.
“We made it very clear to them today that we’re not going to put up with it and unless they immediately agree to stop, we’ll be back!”
Councillor Sankey said: “The stunt in the chamber today took place while our Labour cabinet was trying to invest millions of pounds in building 306 new affordable homes, including 183 council homes for residents in the city.
“That is not the action of a campaigning group that genuinely cares about building homes and supporting vulnerable people.
“Even more ironically, they seem to have missed the fact that in March 2025 we introduced a new policy on debt management to ensure that we can support, rather than punish, those facing hardship.
“The statistics they are quoting are for the previous year – before we changed council policy – and are exactly why our Labour council has adopted a more progressive approach, putting Labour values into action.”
For more on the council’s policy, visit https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/corporate-debt-management-policy.
The council leader also cited the group’s intervention in the Queen’s Park by-election campaign earlier this year,
Acorn Brighton apologised after it was reported to the police for misrepresenting two candidates – an offence under electoral law.
After the group said sorry and published a correction, Sussex Police said that it would take no futher action.
The group apologised to Labour candidate Simon Charleton and the Independent, Adrian Hart. The by-election, in September, was won by the Green candidate Marina Lademacher.
Back in the chamber, the cabinet approved an extra £2.6 million towards its joint venture scheme with the housing association Hyde Group.
The joint venture, known as Homes for Brighton and Hove, plans to build 306 flats as part of a £100 million scheme.
The extra funding will take the council share of the scheme to just over £60 million, funding 183 flats to rent.
Hyde will retain the freehold of the land and manage a shared ownership scheme for its 123 properties on the plot next to the 564 new Moda flats.
Labour councillor Gill Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said that the council would be letting one, two, three and four-bedroom flats and that there would be 15 more homes for people with disabilities.
Councillor Williams said: “It reflects our commitment to truly affordable housing.
“This isn’t just a place to live. It’s a place to thrive.”
I respected the work Acorn did a lot before they pulled this amazingly stupid own goal today. I am so disappointed in them.
Using historic numbers to condemn a policy that didn’t even exist at the time is disingenuous. And I’m confident ACORN understand that distinction, which makes the choice even more disappointing. If they genuinely wanted to challenge how enforcement is handled today, the obvious step would be to look at post-policy data, assess whether the new approach is working, and campaign accordingly. Instead they’ve used last year’s figures to imply current harm, which tells us nothing meaningful about what the council is doing now.
https://bhccportal.icasework.com/resource?id=D10433473&db=3nP4fsKIIxA%3D
There’s also the issue of accuracy. An “enforcement agent referral” is not a bailiff turning up at someone’s home. The legal process begins with a Notice of Enforcement, followed by attempts to contact the debtor, and then payment plan options. Multiple credible organisations — Citizens Advice, StepChange, the Money Advice Trust – all confirm that most cases resolve at this compliance stage and never progress to a physical visit.
So ACORN’s claim simply isn’t supported by their own evidence. They’ve taken a complex process and framed it as the most absurd possible scenario.
And the worst part is the choice of timing. They staged this disruption at the exact moment the council was approving hundreds of new affordable and council homes; the kind of homes ACORN members constantly campaign for. They could have submitted representations, or pressed for constructive oversight of the new debt policy. Instead they opted for theatrics that achieved nothing.
I expected better from people like Keziah Hall. Actions like this don’t build power for tenants; they just erode public trust and push ACORN into the same space as JSO-style performative protest – loud, attention-grabbing, and ultimately counterproductive.
Acorn are amazing and do some really fantastic grassroots lobbying work. They have run campaigns that have led to real change. Commentators paraphrasing Cllr Sankey’s comments about figures being out of date just look like Labour Party stooges defending them. I’ve pasted the figures from the FOI below. The figures are for the tax years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, ie the 2 most recent financial year periods, so quite why people are saying they are out of date is very odd. It is common practice for campaigners to refer to information revealed in FOIs, rather than just relying on spin from politicians.
Can’t help but note the lack of empathy being shown either. The distress caused by bailiff use is dreadful, and research by amazing organisations, like Citizens Advice, makes clear that there are much more effective ways of managing debt collection while avoiding / minimising bailiff use. Criticising Acorn for highlighting a very real problem, one which shows that up until April THIS YEAR, BHCC’s bailiff use had doubled compared to the prev year, suggests a lack of empathy for those affected by debt and struggling to make ends meet. Prioritising defending the council over and above some campaigners waiving a banner is bizarre. Their actions obviously would not have stopped any subsequent decision made at the council about an item on the agenda related to agreeing a new housing development, so strange for the Leader, and for posters to refer to the timing of the banner being unfurled. Is that REALLY the WORST PART in your opinion – wow!
1. Tax year 24/25: The number of times between 1st April 2024 – 31st March 2025 that private bailiffs/enforcement agents have been instructed to enforce council tax debts owed to the local authority.
FOI figures:
Response: 11,237.
2. Tax year 23/24: The number of times between 1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024 that private bailiffs/enforcement agents have been instructed to enforce council tax debts owed to the local authority.
Response: 5,119.
It’s clear you didn’t read my comment particularly thoroughly, because I posted the original FOI source of those figures, and I’ve explained in detail why they do not make sense. Let me play it as a scenario for you.
To repeat myself Clare – those figures are irrelevant, not only are they out-of-date, they are being used to challenging something that has already been addressed, a classic case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. But also because an instruction to enforcement agents is not a visit, not a threat at the door, and not the scenario people picture when they hear the word bailiff. Acorn know this, so it comes across as Trumpism, with your own words supporting this.
I am not going to be side tracked by an argument of emotion. Of course it is a stressful time for those who are struggling through an enforcement scenario. That is such an obvious point, most people would assume it doesn’t need saying. It doesn’t change the fact that this protest was ill-thought out, and misrepresentative in its use of data, and what’s more disappointing is Acorn will have alienated itself, regulating itself to making noise outside, rather than meaningful change. Vulnerable tenants have been fundamentally let down by this action. A protest looks good, and I’m sure someone would have most likely sat there making videos, but does that ultimately make a difference? In this instance, they are protesting a ghosts.
It wasn’t just waving a banner, it was an attempt to prevent affordable homes from being approved through intimidation, sidestepping meaningful conversation and representation. Taking your logic, if they pulled this stunt during remembrance proceedings, would you’d say that was okay? No, you wouldn’t. I’m embarrassed at how wrong they got it on this occasion.
And again, any argument you make using those figures is irrelevant, because they not looking at current process. In good faith, if they want to go get figures after the changes were made, then there is a meaningful discussion that can be made, and if the data came to the same conclusions, then I’d support campaigning.
At the moment, they do not know. They do not know what the current usage is since the change in policy. They do not know what impact the change has had. Therefore, my point remains. I’m all for challenging when things are wrong, heaven knows I do it a lot with commentors on here, as you’re aware I’m sure. But it has to be based on sound logic, and good faith, representative facts.
This protest would have made sense over a year ago. Today? The new policy has already moved in and made itself at home.
Waiving a banner about bailiff use in no way jeopardised a decision on the building of affordable homes in the longer term. Yes, it may have temporarily interrupted the meeting, but if you are suggesting that the Labour councillors would have permanently shelved plans to build hundred of homes in the city because Acorn waived a banner for a few minutes and spoke about their national Boot the Bailiff campaign, it’s ridiculous.
As for the figures, you posted a link, I posted the figures. The figures show that under the Labour council between 2023-2024 bailiffs were used 5,119 times. Under the Labour council between 2024-2025 they used bailiffs 11,237 – times. Councillors talk about an ‘inherited’ policy, and irrespective of whether they have adopted a different approach in the last few months, they did not change the policy when they first took office, and worse, they took an even more heavy handed approach the second year they were in office when it came to enforcement.
For me, it’s not just figures though. Between the first year Lab took office in 2023, and the following year, they chose to use bailiff enforcement against 6,118 more PEOPLE than the previous year. I don’t think that’s an irrelevant figure, whether or not the council claim they are now trying to adopt a different approach. I’m sorry you can’t see that it’s real people behind the figures and you feel uncomfortable factoring in the emotiveness and real harm heavy handed bailiff can cause. I very much disagree that the massive jump in bailiff use is ‘irrelevant’.
PS – don’t be ridiculous on your Remembrance logic. Acorn were making a point to the council, on a council issue, about council policy, in the council chamber. You’re spiralling off into the world of wild fantasy.
You’re not listening. No-one has claimed historic figures were acceptable. Exactly why a new policy in March 2025 was important. Those FOI numbers describe an old regime. They tell us nothing about whether the new policy is working. If ACORN’s argument is “your reforms aren’t good enough”, then the honest way to prove that is with post-policy data, but that’s a different conversation than what incomprehensively attempted here.
We can be angry about historic over-use and still ask campaigns to use the right figures for the policy that exists now. Anything before that is irrelevant. That’s not a lack of empathy, it’s just dealing in evidence rather than theatrics.
Incorrect. I am listening. I’m just not the one who is doggedly determined to defend the council on issues where I think the way they go about things causes more harm. You’ve made quite a few sweeping statements to try and back up your arguments, including implying that the Acorn protest may have led to the council abandoning its plans to agree to build more than 300 homes, which is nonsense, and making a random assumption that because I think Acorn protesting inside the council on a council policy issue that I would somehow support them turning up at a non-council event remembering fallen service personal and disrupting that.
I maintain data from 2024-April 2025 is not old data, it’s the most recent data available. If the council has taken steps since then to reduce bailiff use, then good – but Labour councillors cannot, and should not deny that on their watch bailiff use increased to a staggering level. It’s far from an irrelevant point.
Acorn are a grassroots campaign organisation and they speak to people first hand about bailiff use, they have a v good sense of what is actually happening on the ground right now, and I’m sure they will get more recent data (if and when the council release it to them). For now though, the facts remain that bailiff use has doubled under the Labour council (with to date no explanation from them why this was), there is no published evidence about the impact of any policy change, but what we do know is the council still uses bailiffs for council tax enforcement, despite evidence from Citizens Advice about how counterproductive and ineffective bailff use can be and that it’s not cost effective for councils either.
Then you are simply not understanding, and really don’t understand the concept of reductio ad absurdum, so let’s park that particular point, because it’s going over your head. Let me try to separate three things out, because I think we agree on more than it sounds like.
1) 5,119 then 11,237 instructions is evidentally a serious problem. I’ve never denied that, and I’m not asking anyone to feel comfortable about it either.
2) However, those figures are entirely under an old regime. The whole point of the March 2025 policy was to stop exactly that pattern. Until we have post-policy data, we simply don’t know whether that reform is working. That’s my only point about irrelevance: it’s irrelevant to judging the new policy. Being the most recent data can still be out-of-date, for the reasons I’ve explained thoroughly. You’re welcome to hold a different perspective, but it isn’t supported by basic logic. I’m glad you agree that post-policy data is important, because that’s the only meaningful metric anyone should be pushing for.
3) You can think ACORN are broadly a force for good and still say that, on this occasion, using historic figures to attack a changed policy and disrupting the approval of 183 council homes was a strategic own goal. Challenging the council on enforcement now means demanding transparency on outcomes since March, not pretending last year’s numbers describe current practice. On that, we would agree.
Until then:
Poor Timing.
Poor Optics for Acorn.
Damaged their Reputation.
Strategically Unwise.
Derailed Their Mission.
And Was a Disservice to Tenants.
I had respect for Acorn when they first established themselves but now they have become counter productive. This stunt is purely about publicity for themselves and they appear more often in campaigns that have nothing to do with renters rights, such as bus fares etc.
It seems to have become a home for disillusioned socialists and momentum members, alongside some green infiltrating activists.
Trying to halt a meeting that is bringing about meaningful change achieves little. You have lost my support.
At every meeting of the council and its committees there is space for members of the public to submit petitions, questions and present a delegation.
The submission dates are all on the councils website. No one submitted any of the above to today’s meeting.
Why didn’t Acorn use one of those methods?
Shouting from the gallery and disrupting an official, legally constituted meeting might generate some publicity but that’s about it and has likely harmed any relationship they had with the Council.
Acorn do regularly use those methods Chris. It’s not always easy to get things on the council agenda as a member of the public, especially since the switch to the Cabinet system.
I think you make an excellent point about the long-term prospects of Acorn now, Chris. Getting a deputation in is pretty easy, and watching the cabinet meeting, there wasn’t any in today. The timing is way off as well, the data looks provocative, but more useful is what is happening since the change. If this was eight months prior, before any changes were made, I’d have a very different opinion on it.
I’m all for fairer housing but people not paying their rent is the root of this issue. If you are up to date with your rent, which should be at the top end of your priority list, then there will be no need for the use of bailiffs. It seems to some that cable TV, catalogue debt, lip filler, tobacco, alocohol and cannabis are more pressing debts. If you hit problems, engaging with your housing provider is the best way forward. I want BHCC to collect all outstanding debts so that they are capable of giving us the services that we all pay for.
Agreed, there’s a wider issue of understanding why people are getting into such debt that their tenancy is at risk. Bailiffs have a legal obligation to work with tenants to explore options before an eviction, so even at that compliance stage, which is effectively a letter demanding payment, many different sources indicate it ends there for the majority of people.
It’s worth considering that the benefit switchover is causing a lot problems with rent payments at the moment, which may be a significant contributing factor to enforcement referrals, especially if people are also not engaging or not aware that rent isn’t being paid. Now that would be a worthwhile campaign for Acorn.
If it’s done in-house or externally is kind of a moot point, as long as it is done ethically. But yes, engagement is always a good step forward, because things like working out payment plans, and getting advice show a positive willingness, and generally, people don’t get evicted when they are acting in good faith, especially not from council properties.
The shouty discussion here seems to be about how and if the council should go about collecting money that is owed to them. But, surely, that is the wrong discussion to be having?
I am lucky enough to live in a nice road in Hove, but there are bedsits in our building which are let by slum landlords. These landlords don’t need to do anything to their flats because there is a shortage of rental accommodation in our area, and it’s easy to find tenants, despite the rent being £1,000+ for a grotty one bed place.
On top of that rent, the council tax will be another £100 per month, electricity £50 per month (assuming you don’t put on the heating), and unmetered water is now charged at £40 per month minimum. You then have other unavoidable bills like TV licence, TV and broadband, phone charges etc. To get to work, there will be bus fares, or your bike maintenance fees. You can forget about having any insurance.
My point here is that your monthly living costs – before food, drink and any social activities – will add up to be over £1500 per month.
On minimum wage, your take home pay for a 40 hour week will probably be about £1500 per month, but if you earn a bit more like £2,000, then that still only leaves £500 to cover food etc. The only way to solve the issue is to double up or to live three to a room, and I happen to know that one bedsit tenant in our building has not put money in his key meter for a year, because he can’t afford the electricity. Imagine living without lights, heating or cooking facilities?
These figures reveal the Dickensian reality for many people. In our building, these tenants don’t last long. The debts pile up and they move on before the money collectors catch up with them, and the endless debt-chasing letters pile up in our communal post box.
My personal experience with these ever-changing neighbours is that they are usually nice people, hoping to make a life in our city, but the figures between modern outgoings and earnings don’t stack up.
On topic, talking about whether the council should use bailiffs to chase rent and council tax money is a distraction from the underlying issue.
As usual Billy, you make a lot of sense, and your final point is why it is particularly frustrating on their timing, because introducing more affordable housing does a lot of work in tackling that underlying issue, so it comes across as they want to be a noise, rather than a solution.