A house that partially collapsed in Brighton’s North Laine is set to be rebuilt in its original style after being stabilised.
A large part of the three-storey house’s wall collapsed a month ago, leading to the evacuation of several neighbouring houses in Over Street.
The day before, neighbours told a meeting of the North Laine Community Association that a basement extension had disturbed a previously unidentified sewer and made the house unstable.
A council spokeswoman said there is an ongoing investigation which would seek to answer what caused the collapse.
However, she added that rather than demolish it, the house would be rebuilt.
She said: “It has been agreed that the whole building will not need to be demolished and a scheme is being worked on to rebuild the property in the original style.
“Planning permission will not be required for this work. Stabilisation works are still being carried out but the ‘emergency’ danger has been resolved.”
The house is currently standing surrounded by a cage of scaffolding, with the interior gutted and the sky visible through the second floor windows.
Neighbour Nick Fry, who lives opposite, said the basement extension work had been going on for several months by the time the wall collapsed.
He said: “We understand it was a basement conversion – they had been taking soil out since September.
“The houses here have got half basements, so he must have been extending it backwards.
“We came back from holiday just after this had happened – the next day we were then evacuated, and stayed overnight in the Ibis hotel.
“It’s still inconvenient with the road being closed – and the council has had to take away our communal bins because the City Clean lorries can’t get to them.”
The neighbours living next door to the house were back within their properties within a week, and the commercial unit next door, which houses Owen Powell architects, is back in action but at present has no toilet facility.
Weeks now after the collapse, scaffolding is still blocking our street, can’t park our cars easily, deliveries difficult and building work seems to have ground to a complete halt. What is happening? Does anyone know?
Whoever the owner is, we feel for your loss, but can you start to make some progress now to get our street back to normal please? Your neighbours are suffering too!!
Thank you.
We are all now fed up of the mess that is No 1 Over St. Nobody has the good manners to tell us anything, we have been just left to live it 24/7. While I feel for the Owners of No 1, 6 weeks have now gone by and nobody has had the good manners to let us know what is happening. Are we all just expected to put up with i? and for how long is this disruption going to go on for? We have already had months of noise and disruption from the builders who were digging out the basement in No 1.Just how much are we just expected to put up with? Over St is fed up. Thanks.