Blueprint for future in Brighton and Hove melting pot

Call it what you want but the Greens running Brighton and Hove City Council have certainly put their heads above the parapet with their view on how the city should develop.

Since The Argus headline of “11,000 new homes for city” on Thursday, October 6, debate has raged both publicly and privately.

This is because, on the surface, the Green administration has opted to do some very “ungreen” things.

If town hall bosses get their way then plans for a park-and-ride, an idea that the majority people support as a way to cut down on congestion, will be finally ditched.

This is not forgetting their blueprint would encourage building in an area of undeveloped privately-owned land as a way to meet a national target for homes.

Putting boot in

The response from the public, never mind Green Party members locally, is unlikely to be favourable which is why political rivals are already queuing up to put the boot into the team which has only been in power for four months.

There is only one problem – a lack of land.

People living in the city must know it is boxed in by the sea on one side; the South Downs National Park on the other.

Looking east and west the boundary blends into neighbouring urban areas of Telscombe and Southwick.

To put it into perspective there is about 150 hectares of available land in Brighton and Hove. The site for the Olympics in London is 200.

No wonder planning and regeneration cabinet member Amy Kennedy has often said that she sometimes wished there was the space that authorities such as Manchester, Sheffield and some London boroughs have.

When coming up with a city blueprint, planners must not only think of areas where people can live but space must also be allocated for citizens to work and play.

The term “balanced” is the one most strive for and this is what the Greens say they hope to achieve.

This is why the minority council is looking for views on four of the most controversial topics in the city before the blueprint is signed off at a meeting of full council this month.

Its plans for student housing and employment are likely to receive broad approval.

But it is with the park-and-ride and housing where the most debate will be had.

Very difficult

Councillor Kennedy said: “For us as a Green group and council it has been very difficult to take on board views from our professional planning officers while seeking to provide housing, office space and other amenities.

“With park-and-ride our view is as a group that it has been the holy grail of transport policy for successive administrations for the last 20 years.

“Even in the age of large public sector projects nobody could develop it.

“So in these times and with the limited space we have, we felt that it was the truthful and the right thing to do to stop the pretence that we can get a park-and- ride site and start looking at other ways around sustainable transport.”

The Greens’ preferred plan is not the only option.

The council could either plan to look again at sites or continue on its current policy of three to five smaller car parks around the edge of the city.

Coun Kennedy said this was not a political decision although it does mean, for the administration’s plan to be overturned, either the Tory or the Labour groups must deviate from their apparent preferred route.

Conservative group leader Geoffrey Theobald said he was “extremely surprised” at the decision, adding that several smaller sites on the main entrances to the city would provide a sustainable solution to the traffic problem in the city centre.

Then there is the biggest problem: housing.

Gone are the regional targets which have been scrapped by the Government.

In their place will be the National Planning Policy Framework, a simplification of the way the planning process works, which ministers believe will get the country building again.

But experts say the change from “demand” to “supply” will mean the city has to find twice as many homes than the 8,000 previously expected over a 20-year period.

The political debate is expected to be fierce, particularly around the issue of Toad’s Hole Valley, a section of privately-owned land between the A27 and King George VI Avenue in Hove, which the local authority believes could hold 750 homes.

The Greens favour building on it to give it a target of 11,200 homes up to 2030; the opposition are accusing them of “hypocrisy” and are already getting signatures to stop it.

But in the papers to be agreed by the council this week there are other options.

Targets of 13,500 and 15,800 properties are unlikely to be supported locally as it would lead to a “dormitory town” effect with the reduction of open space and areas for employment.

A target of 9,800 homes would save Toad’s Hole Valley from development.

The Conservative (18 councillors) and Labour (13) groups could unite and outvote the administration to favour this idea when the city plan is created at full council.

Required target

They will likely get the support of the city’s environmental lobby group, many of who probably voted for the Greens in the local elections.

But Coun Kennedy says not including Toad’s Hole Valley in the city plans risks the local authority being asked to draft it again as it will not meet the required housing target expected of the city by national planners.

She added if the plot was not included, the new Government guidelines would mean any proposals brought forward by its private owners would probably be overturned on appeal.

By including it Coun Kennedy claims the local authority will have at least some say over what is built there.

In one of those strange political twists the administration’s views are not too dissimilar to those of the Conservative-led Government: the way out of the recession is to bring forward development.