Student houses are being turned back into family homes again after their owners sold them back to Brighton and Hove City Council.
The council has bought back three houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in Bevendean. Two are being converted into family homes and one into temporary housing.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, and Councillor Gill Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing, visited two six-bedroom student homes which currently being turned back into four-bedroom family homes.
Councillor Taylor, who represents Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, said that the properties were built as council houses in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Their size meant that they were suited to families, he said.
Homes sold to occupants under the “right to buy” were among 100 bought back by the council since April last year.
He said: “I think people generally are pretty keen and excited when the council buys back a six-bed HMO and turns it into a family house.
“This is one of the few areas that still could be affordable or at least a bit more affordable for a proper family house and there are the schools near by to support it.
“Whenever I mention it, residents are very supportive of this policy.”
Councillor Taylor said that some HMO landlords had approached the council to sell back their houses.
He said: “Student numbers are falling and we’ve also had a fair amount of building in the city in the last five to ten years of purpose-built student accommodation.
“I’m hoping this is a good time to be able to get back some of these properties and return them to family homes.”
Councillor Williams said that she felt sorry for the students who used to live in the houses as some of the rooms where quite small.
One of the houses had six bedrooms, with one made out of a cupboard and another from the garage.
She said: “It did make me a bit sad the way they chopped up these buildings. These were once family homes and they’re just squeezing in as many students as possible.
“The kitchen and communal areas were a bit sorry-looking. I teach students so I always want to look after them.”
Councillor Williams added that the council was short of four-bedroom family homes so these houses will would help families off the waiting list or out of temporary housing.
The council has been given £9.2 million from the government’s Local Authority Housing Fund for an extra 46 homes, of which 28 would be temporary housing and 18 would be resettlement homes over the next four years.
Let’s hope that the Council ensure that these will not be subject to a future right to buy. On the flip side, what were the housing inspectors doing whilst the occupants were living in cupboards and garages? Hovel conditions should not be allowed in this day and age!
I think this could really do with some joined up thinking from Planning because they are still approving new large HMOs in Bevendean while Housing are buying back HMOs that have previously been completed. Currently on Auckland Drive there are at least 2 HMOs under construction, one is a new purchase and the other is an increase in size.
Planning needs to step up and stop Rivers Birtwell and people like them from continuing to turn the whole area in a student area.
It’s not nearly enough though. So many families have been forced out of Brighton. So many of us including myself have been recently evicted section 21 due to the May 1st renters rights bill. I’ve lived and worked in Brighton for over 25 years I am a support worker who are now in short supply as none of us can afford to live here anymore! I care for family members saving the systyloads of money. There is no 2 bed homes that are affordable to us. The council are pretending these evictions are not happening!
The number of landlords using S21 to kick people out is deplorable, given the need to be held accountable and to meet basic standards.
Stop the right to buy for at least 10 years, if ever there is a surplus to sell then consider it but not while waiting lists exist.
Assuming an outright abolishment isn’t an option (I wish it was), I’d fancy a conditional RTB based on the current waiting lists. Although they did announce this new pilot scheme instead of RTB, which seems pretty good, and avoids losing a property from the portfolio.
Benjamin’s right to call out Section 21 — but this is exactly why schemes like this matter.
Turning former HMOs back into proper family housing is one of the few ways to actually increase long-term supply, instead of just reshuffling people between insecure rentals.
The bigger issue is the contradiction: the council is buying back homes in Bevendean while more HMOs are still being approved. That’s not a strategy — that’s working against yourself.
And unless something changes with Right to Buy, there’s a real risk these same homes just get sold off again in the future.
Good policy in principle — but it needs scale and consistency, otherwise it barely scratches the surface.
Which is why the recently announced pilot scheme is interesting, because it essentially protects a council home from being lost to the private market, and is economically very savvy, at least as a stopgap measure until devolution powers and national legalisation make a fundamental change to RTB.
Otherwise, it is basically a bucket of water with a slow leak.
Why don’t they set up a community interest company to own and manage these properties at arms length? Surely this could be used to circumvent any future right to buy?
As I understand it, I think some work is currently underway to set up an ALMO at the moment. Also has the benefit of potentially attracting additional funding streams for house building too.