Campaigners to share vision for Brighton General at community picnic tomorrow

The Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site plans to hold a community picnic there tomorrow (Sunday 17 May) at 2pm.

The organisers are also holding a community art session outside the main Arundel Building, at the top of Elm Grove, with visions for the old hospital site, alongside the picnic on the grass there.

The local singer-songwriter Robb Johnson is due to sing some songs, including his adapted version of the Woody Guthrie classic This Land is Your Land.

The organisers said that it was pertinent to the message of the picnic on the hospital site, reflecting the “keep it public” message of the campaign.

The Community Campaign for the Brighton General Hospital Site is an alliance of local groups, city-wide housing and health campaigns and local residents.

The campaign opposes the privatisation of any part of the Brighton General Hospital site, which is surplus to health needs, arguing that it should be publicly owned and used to benefit residents’ needs.

The campaign wants to see council housing at social rents, key worker housing at truly affordable rents, community facilities and biodiversity enhancements.

Brighton and Hove City Council has voted to support council housing on the site and to work up financial modelling to buy the site and achieve social housing or a “joint-venture” mix.

Representatives of the council are due to meet with the NHS trust that owns the site and the campaign wants them to undertake a health impact assessment.

The aim of this is to demonstrate the value of social council housing rather than private housing in reducing health inequalities.

Previously, the NHS trust planned to sell off the land to private housing developers at the maximum price.

But the campaign group said: “If we can show that this is not good for narrowing health inequalities, the trust will have good reason to sell cheaply to the council.

“In the meantime, we are inviting members of the NHS trust board and governing body to join local residents for a picnic on the site.

“Residents will be expressing their visions, through art work, of how the site could benefit local people if it is kept in public hands.

“We are holding the picnic at the hospital site to symbolise that the site is a precious public asset to be used for the benefit of the community.”

One of the campaigners, Clare Jones, said: “We are holding a picnic on public land, which must not be privatised and lost as an asset for the people of Brighton and Hove.

“At the picnic, residents and local children have been creating artworks to show their ideas of how the community could benefit, creating a community vision for the site.

“We have heard some encouraging words from the local council and we are now calling on the NHS trust to meet and work with the community.”

She called on the new Health Secretary Jame Murray to block the privatisation of the site and instead insist on its sale to the council at a sensible price.

This would ensure that it could be developed to maximise public good, with the associated social value benefits for the people of Brighton and Hove, she said, adding: “We can win this!”