A former school can be used as a huge shared house for the next two years after councillors reluctantly granted planning permission for a temporary change of use.
The old Brighton Girls Junior School, in Radinden Manor Road, Hove is already being used as 47-bed house in multiple occupation (HMO).
The retrospective planning application to change the use of the site was submitted by Lowe Management to Brighton and Hove City Council.
And yesterday (Wednesday 7 October), it was approved by eight votes to one when the council’s Planning Committee met at Hove Town Hall.
The plans include 13 single-occupancy bedrooms on the ground floor, 17 on the first floor and 17 more on the second floor.
Lowe Management told the Planning Committee that the old school had been operating as a shared house for seven months, with signs at the site saying that the occupants were “property guardians”.
Radinden Manor Road resident Neil Christensen, who lives opposite the building, said that there had never been any issues with vandalism in the five years since Brighton Girls moved out.
Mr Christensen, who has lived in the road for 20 years, said: “The committee is not being asked to predict what might happen if planning is granted as it is already operating.
“Residents have already experienced consequences of late-night noise, anti-social behaviour and parking problems.”
Property guardian Bryony Banks, 33, who lives in the building, said that there were 45 residents with a wide age range – up to people in their seventies.
Their backgrounds were varied too, she said, from National Health Service (NHS) staff and council workers to police officers, teachers and charity workers.
She said: “This is not a building where anyone can simply move in. When I applied, I went through identity, financial and reference checks, as well as a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check.
“Only registered guardians can live in the building as their main home and we have clear rules about behaviour, visitors, noise and parties.”
She said that Lowe Management carried out regular inspections – and as far as she was aware, most residents did not own cars but used buses or trains.
Councillors asked whether they could backdate planning permission to when the building was first occupied in March but ultimately decided against doing so.
Conservative councillor Carol Theobald was the only councillor to vote against the application which she described as a “money-making business”.
Councillor Theobald said: “I do feel there should have been enforcement for something as big as this … an HMO with so many people.
“There is harm to the character of the residential area. It is a quiet residential area. I used to live near there and know how it is. It doesn’t fit in with it at all.”
Labour councillor Paul Nann agreed it was money-making by monetising squatting. Councillor Nann said: “I am completely against guardianship companies.
“Unfortunately, we missed the opportunity to deal with guardianship companies creating two-tier systems of tenancy, and precarious tenancies at that, and creating groups of people that are 28 days away of being homeless.
“We’ve missed that opportunity and the law has given them HMO status so, as much as I would like to vote against this, for many reasons, I just can’t.”
Labour councillor Tobias Sheard, the deputy chair of the Planning Committee, spoke passionately about the need for HMOs for young professionals like himself as he lives in one and works as a prison officer.
Councillor Sheard said: “If you don’t want to see these larger HMOs, you’ve got to shout for better housing (and) shout for more houses to be built where we need them.
“Too many people want to have their cake and eat it, not have housing built and just expect people to not have anywhere to live.”
Brighton Girls moved out of the building in 2021 after consolidating the junior and senior school on its Montpelier Road site, in Brighton, but it continues to use the playing field.
The building was Cardinal Newman Catholic School’s lower school before all year groups were brought together on the main site in The Upper Drive.
It was originally built as Cottesmore St Mary Secondary School.
