Campaigners are holding a public meeting this evening as part of their drive for low-cost homes to be built on the Brighton General Hospital site, at the top of Elm Grove.
The meeting is due to start at 7pm at the Friends’ Meeting House, in Ship Street, Brighton, and has been organised by the Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site.
The speakers are expected to include Labour councillor Jacob Taylor, the deputy leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the former Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, who recently joined the Greens.
The organisers said: “The Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site is calling a citywide meeting to keep the site in public hands and build low-cost homes and vital community facilities.”
They said that the campaign had enjoyed a great deal of cross-party backing along with overwhelming support from the local community in the Pankhurst, Hanover and Elm Grove and Queen’s Park areas.
They added that health, housing and other campaign groups from across Brighton and Hove had also been central.
Councillor Taylor said: “We have a severe housing crisis in this city and a shortage of land for new developments.
“As a council, we’re deadly serious about building social housing on the General Hospital site and have made a clear offer to work with the trust to achieve this.
“Brighton needs social and affordable housing – not luxury private developments that are out of reach of residents on average incomes.”
The Brighton General Hospital site has been earmarked for redevelopment for years. It is currently owned by the Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, having been gifted to the NHS by Brighton Borough Council in the 1940s.
The NHS trust is based at the former hospital site – previously the workhouse – and plans to sell most of the site for private development.
The Community Campaign and a number of other local community groups, politicians and residents are determined to save the site for public benefit.
Jerome Cox-Strong, from the Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site, said: “The campaign – and the community – could not be clearer in terms of the potential the site offers to tackle major issues in the local area and the city as a whole.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We’re calling on the government and the trust to work with us to allow the council to take control of the site at a fair price and get things right.”
The Community Campaign said: “Previous attempts to engage with the board of the NHS trust have been met with disappointment.
“Mr Cox-Strong spoke on behalf of the Community Campaign at a meeting of the board in September, asking for the trust to support the campaign.
“Instead, the trust confirmed its intention to sell the site off, with no guarantees for the local community.”
The meeting is due to start at 7pm this evening (Tuesday 17 February) and finish at 9pm.
The Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Pavilion, Chris Ward, and the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Sian Berry, have sent letters in support of the campaign.
For more information on the campaign, click here.
More affordable and social rent homes are needed, which should also benefit public health. Part could also be allocated to “key workers” associated with the N.H.S.
All major projects need public meetings. Lack of transparency is not on.
Will the council buy the site from the NHS trust ?
Having once worked in the main building it is not really suitable for modern living, it is falling apart, full of faults and expensive to heat. If turned into social housing it would rapidly become an expensive millstone or a slum.
Demolishing and rebuilding would not be cheap and beyond the means of the council, even if the land was donated by the NHS trust.
I very much suspect that the only way forward is private sector development.
It may be possible to do something similar to the student accommodation blocks as a joint venture?
A full demolition and rebuild might be achievable and perhaps preferable if the condition is as you describe it; but it would definitely require grant funding from Homes England, especially if it were to be social housing or even at LHA rates.
Couldn’t agree more . My thoughts too
It makes sense to convert one of the last virtually intact workhouses in the country into a sensitive social housing and workspace scheme, utilising existing green spaces there. The modern buildings can be demolished with complementary blocks replacing them. Lessons need to be learned from losing the substantial and attractive Nurses home next door in favour of an unsympathetic scheme which housed no more people. Losing this facility did not benefit local NHS staff either., who now often struggle to find accommodation anywhere near where they work. Although the ambulance station has been moved, around 20 non-surgical units still work out of the Brighton General. It will be some time until it is an empty site for redevelopment.
This idea to turn this area into housing is very welcome, I do hope that those decanted from the tower blocks will have access to these properties when built as this would keep communities and families closer together during the Whitehawk regeneration.
I believe the intention is to ensure that decanted residents are to be housed first and individually supported.