Brighton & Hove shows councils can fight back on housing

Everyone deserves somewhere safe to live, somewhere to raise a family in, somewhere to build a home. That shouldn’t be out of reach for so many; it should be a fundamental right.

Sadly, Brighton and Hove, like the rest of the UK, is in the midst of a long-term housing crisis and suitable housing is in acutely short supply, leaving many of our residents in desperate need of a home where they can settle with dignity and security.

That is why we are doing all we can to increase the supply of local housing.

That includes ongoing efforts to reverse the worse impacts of the disastrous Right to Buy scheme. Right to Buy saw homes built as council houses sold to occupants at below the market rate – with significant discounts offered to council tenants under the government scheme.

Many of those houses sold were family homes councils could ill afford to lose from their stock. But lose them they did. Councils were powerless to stem the flow of vital housing stock away from local authorities as a direct result of the policy introduced by the Thatcher government in 1980.

The impact has been huge and is still being felt today, with councils like ours left with fewer homes to offer to residents while demand increases year on year.

Many of those homes lost under Right to Buy also ended up being converted by landlords into houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).

The upshot? Less council housing, fewer family homes in general and huge pressure added to both the social housing waiting lists and the local housing market.

But this council is doing all it can to change that situation.

We recently bought back three HMOs in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, which are now being converted into family homes; one will be used as temporary accommodation.

The properties were built as council houses between the 1930s and 1950s and sold under Right to Buy. Now they are back where they belong and being used for what they were intended – supporting local families.

We have bought back 100 council homes lost under Right to Buy since April 2025, doing so through our Home Purchase Policy. Since 2017, the figure of homes bought by this council is more than 500.

Hundreds of homes back under council ownership and once again available for local families.

All the homes bought back under our flagship Home Purchase Policy are advertised to residents on Homemove, our social housing platform, or directly allocated as temporary accommodation for households in immediate housing need.

Our Home Purchase Policy has helped us add hundreds of much-needed family homes and temporary accommodation to the council's housing supply.

And we aren’t finished. Not by a long way.

We recently secured an additional £9.2 million in government funding to help us provide an extra 46 homes across the city over the next four years.

And that is just the work we’re doing re-writing the historic wrongs of Right to Buy.

Throughout the city we are seeing ambitious, modern, council-led housing developments taking place designed to not only increase the availability of affordable and socially rented housing, but to build and strengthen our local communities.

In Moulsecoomb, a vibrant new community hub and more than 200 sustainable new council homes are being developed on underused sites. Work has begun and the design, developed in tandem with local residents, has been widely praised within the housing and community development sector.

Across the city in Hove, planning permission has been granted for 306 new affordable homes in Sackville Road through the council’s Homes for Brighton & Hove partnership with Hyde. The development includes 183 council-rented homes and 123 homes for shared ownership and construction will start later this spring.

And in Portslade, work has begun on more than 40 new affordable flats and a community centre on and near the site of the Portslade Village Centre.

Each development has sustainability and community at its core. We aren’t just building more houses. We’re building more homes, new communities and places where people can thrive.

Those three developments alone will add more than 500 homes to our supply. Together with over 500 homes already added, that is more than 1,000 homes which will be available to local people, local families and those in most need. And there is more in the pipeline.

The housing crisis is far from over. This council faces increased pressures; more than 2,000 households have come to us for help with housing in the past year, contributing to spiralling costs in areas like temporary and emergency accommodation.

And we know that, sandwiched between the sea and the South Downs, the issue of housing supply meeting demand will always be a challenge in this city.

A decent, secure, affordable home should not be a luxury; it should be a basic right that everyone deserves.

I am proud this council is doing all it can to make that right a reality; we are tackling the challenges head on and we will persevere with dogged determination to build and buy as many much-needed homes for our residents as possible.

Councillor Gill Williams is Cabinet Member for Housing at Brighton and Hove City Council.