Councillors have welcomed the prospect of tighter rules on short-term holiday lets – commonly known as Airbnbs after the market leading operator.
Brighton and Hove City Council lobbied the government for action – and Councillor Amanda Evans welcomed the announcement today (Tuesday 8 September) by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy.
Councillor Evans spoke out at the start of the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting at Hove Town Hall, welcoming the introduction of new rules from next March.
The Labour councillor chaired the committee’s first task and finish group in 2024. The group looked at potential the adverse effects of short-term holiday lets and how to deal with them including the possibility of regulation.
The task and finish group made 12 recommendations to the council’s cabinet to try to address problems linked to the unknown thousands of homes used for short stays.
In June last year, the council’s cabinet was asked to – and did – lobby the government for a new planning class for short-term lets and for a licensing scheme requiring registration as a business.
Answering questions in Parliament last Thursday (3 September), Ms Nandy said that the Prime Minister Andy Burnham had asked her department to accelerate setting up a register of short-term lets.
Ms Nandy said that there were areas where councils wanted to see short-term lets and that those lets supported the tourism sector.
And in others areas there was an acute shortage of housing for local people which councils should have the power to provide.
Councillor Evans, who chairs the committee, said: “This is obviously extremely good news. It’s not enough. It’s not everything we wanted but it’s a good start.
“Under the scheme, owners of short-term lets will be required to register their accommodation, provide key information about the property, pay a registration fee and obtain a registration number which must then be displayed when advertising.”
Green councillor Ollie Sykes said that he was interested to see how action on short-term lets might address the housing need in Brighton and Hove.
For the past 10 years, Brighton and Hove has not hit its building target of 2,500 new homes a year.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, also welcomed the government’s move to regulate Airbnbs, saying that there were about 4,000 homes advertised as holiday lets at any one time in Brighton and Hove.
Councillor Taylor said: “When you think about a city of 270,000 to 280,000 people. That’s a very high concentration.
“If we could bring that down and bring more of those units into permanent residential, whether it’s owned, private rented or in some cases if we could buy them and be social, that would make an impact.
“If we could get from 4,000 down to 3,000, that’s releasing a good chunk of units. It won’t solve everything overnight but that’s one lever among many.”
The council are trying to increase tourism by renting out public space for more and more events while reducing the number of places to stay. It also takes up some housing for homeless and economic migrants. The hotels are filled to capacity. Does anyone else see the problem here?
One broadly welcomes this.
Brighton and Hove plainly needs to strike a sensible balance between a thriving visitor economy and ensuring that those who actually live and work here can find somewhere to live.
And I thought Councillor Evans spoke particularly well. Her emphasis on the effect excessive concentrations of short-term lets can have upon neighbours, communities and the availability of homes was measured, practical and – that increasingly precious commodity – recognisably human.
Then, alas, my eye wandered to the words of the not-young Jacob of the Council.
Apparently, reducing the number of holiday lets might succeed in “releasing a good chunk of units”.
Units.
How splendidly financial.
One appreciates that Councillor Taylor has spent a considerable portion of his professional life at Bank of America, but one had rather hoped that, upon leaving the City of London, boarding the locomotive to Brighton and returning to the affairs of his fellow citizens, the units might once again become homes.
A unit is something one might reasonably expect to encounter on a spreadsheet, in a portfolio or perhaps being discussed across a dealing desk.
A home has a front door. A kitchen table. A neighbour. Someone wondering whether the roof will leak this winter and whether they can afford the rent next month.
Language matters because it occasionally betrays the lens through which we view things.
So credit to Councillor Evans for speaking about the human and community consequences of this issue, and credit too for the broader attempt to find a sensible balance between tourism and residential life.
But please, may we release a good chunk of homes rather than units?
Brighton and Hove is a city, dear boy, not an asset class.
Lady Bracknell