The Brighton General Hospital site should be used for genuinely affordable social housing, according to a motion backed unanimously by Brighton and Hove City Council on Thursday (26 March).
Two Labour members proposed the motion but it won the support of councillors from all parties and none in a rare show of unity.
And it followed a deputation of campaigners from several community groups urging the council to build homes on the site for key workers at socially affordable rents – not shared ownership.
The site, at the top of Elm Grove, Brighton, is owned by the Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust which has proposed building a new health hub there and selling the rest of the land for housing.
Like all public bodies, the trust is generally required to obtain the best financial value for any asset that it sells – and campaigners fear that this would mean selling to a private developer.
Councillors and various local campaign groups have been looking for ways to keep the site in public ownership to enable council housing to be built there. This motion sends a signal, at the very least.
Labour councillors Tim Rowkins and Maureen Winder said that Brighton and Hove had a “housing crisis” and a “dire need for more genuinely affordable homes”.
They also said that there was a “lack of readily available sites for housing development to meet this need” and “key workers are priced out of the city”.
The two councillors, who represent Hanover and Elm Grove ward, persuaded the full council to “express support for the principle of prioritising social housing on suitable public sector land”.
And the council voted to ask senior colleagues to assess “the viability of acquiring the site and developing social housing, either on a standalone basis, or via the joint venture with Hyde”.
Independent councillor Ty Galvin, who also represents Hanover and Elm Grove, recalled when the trust first spelt out its plan to sell much of the site for private housing.
He called the first public meeting to try to galvanise the community to push for public housing instead, given that the site has been in public ownership since it was a workhouse.
The plan was put on hold during the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site has brought together a number of groups with broadly similar aims.
They include the Brighton and Hove Citizens, the Hanover and Elm Grove Communities Forum and the Brighton and Hove Housing Coalition.
Clare Jones spoke for Sussex Defend the NHS at the council meeting and a deputation called for the fullest engagement with residents and stakeholders on a “people’s plan”.
The Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor said: “We want to acquire this site and we want to build tons of social housing on it and we think we can do it.
“That’s what we want to do – and that’s the ambition for this city and administration. We shouldn’t be shooting for anything less than that.”
Councillor Rowkins said that there were few sites left locally that could deliver “significant numbers of homes” because Brighton and Hove was sandwiched between the sea and the South Downs.
But the Brighton General was one such site. He said: “The housing crisis in this city is severe and chronic – and the major driver is the lack of truly affordable housing.
“As a Labour council, we’re desperate to build as many new council homes as possible.”
He said that the trust was working with the council.
Councillor Winder said: “It is a hugely special space in a prime location for high-quality development and offers a unique opportunity for us to enable social housing for the many key workers who have found themselves unable to afford to live in the city.
“It can be a place where families can settle and, as a community, find the home they dreamed of for many years.”
Green councillor Marina Lademacher said that public land must remain in public hands.
She said: “It is now or never to finally do not what is expedient but what is needed to protect this precious part of Brighton’s past, present and future.”
It should, she said, “be sold at a price that keeps it for the benefit of the community, turned into the decent social homes that working people can actually afford”.
“Otherwise,” she added, “we risk losing yet more public space that we’ll never get back.”
Fellow Green councillor Ellen McLeay said: “This is exactly the kind of long‑term strategic thinking required. By buying the site, the council can ensure the site serves public need.”
Conservative councillor Carol Theobald said that it was frustrating that nothing had happened in the eight years since plans were announced to convert the grade II listed 19th century former workhouse building into housing.
She said: “I agree that social housing should be built on that part of the site not required for health purposes.
“Brighton and Hove residents need affordable housing in this central location, especially for key workers like those engaged in health care and teaching.”
Fellow Conservative councillor Anne Meadows called on the council to define key workers in a way that covered those on the lowest wages who served the public.
She said: “Key workers should be the dustmen, those who work at supermarkets for a pittance, those who work in our lower-paid jobs, our bus drivers.
“Those to me are our key workers as what would happen to the city without them?”
I think this is a really good idea. Normally these sorts of buildings are sold off for posh housing bought by people who don’t even live there. But selling it off for council housing and key workers, actually seems like something useful to Brighton people.
Is there no way of preseving the building ?after all it is grade 2 listed.everone seems to see it as a plot of land. Well knock down the royal pavilion and build much needed houses on the prime land.
The listing does pose a few questions about what can be done. One of the councillors did raise that as a question at council, because purpose-built vs maintaining the listing are two very different projects.
Anyway, the Pavilion is hardly a reasonable comparison.
Grade ll like conservation areas have cost limitations included, not endless like certain other graded structures. If keeping it goes above funding and condition of the building is poor then it’s grade is open to change. Graded status is not eternal.
Just flatten the site and start a scratch. If you look at the history of the workhouse, that’s exactly what they did back in the day. Look on maps, it’s a massive site when you take into account the old ambulance station. The NHS drop in centre can be part of whatever new build gets built. But a minimum of 10 stories high should be proposed to make a real dent in the housing crisis