ePetition - Demand for Affordable Housing

Demand for Affordable Housing

The demand for affordable housing within the City far outstrips the supply, to date Brighton has over 16,000 people on the affordable housing waiting list. The draft City Plan does not seek to address the shortfall across the plan period. It is crucial that any proposed developments within the City contribute the full affordable housing requirement of 40%. The council owned Preston Barracks site (Brownfield) only provided 20% affordable housing. The draft City Plan will not remotely come close to addressing existing needs, failure to secure appropriate affordable homes from future sites will only compound the problem.

Demand for Family Homes

The average price of a property in Brighton is now £311,590, which means the vast majority of the City’s population cannot buy a property in Brighton. As result low supply and high demand for housing Brighton’s rental is extremely high, in many cases exhaustive rents for sub standard accommodation.

The draft City Plan identifies that the future housing requirement across the plan period will be in excess of 20,000 new units. The draft City Plan only accommodates 13,500 units, 6500 units short of future demand. The Council’s failure to address identified demand will result in higher property prices and rising rents. The prospect of owning a home in Brighton for the vast majority of young people and families will be out of reach.

Positively Planning to Maximise Site Potential

The council’s housing delivery strategy over the plan period identifies Brown Field and Urban Fringe sites as the primary delivery mechanism. The council’s housing strategy fails to meet the required demand of 20,000 units and has been challenged by a government Inspector. In order to preserve and safeguard the South Downs National Park from development the council must positively plan their identified housing sites to ensure as much of the identified demand can be accommodated. Failure to positively plan future housing sites and maximise development will result in pressure on the more sensitive areas of the Urban Fringe and ultimately the South Downs National Park. Positively planning future development sites will ensure every effort to accommodate future demand is made, resulting in more housing and crucially more affordable housing.

Political Transparency and Accountability

Brighton’s elected members, ward councillors and MPs must take responsibility to ensure Brighton’s long term housing issues are addressed. The extreme housing crisis is a recognised issue across all parties in the City, elected members have a duty to plan for the collective population and ensure the housing issues addressed appropriately. Tough decisions must be made to ensure the City Plan can be adopted and future development is sustainably planned. Elected members should positively support developments, in accordance with City Plan evidence base, which contribute to the City Plan’s housing and affordable housing requirements. The support for proposed developments which are in accordance with the City Plan (and evidence base including SHLAA and Urban Fringe sites) should not be limited to developments outside elected member’s areas.
The council have had their initial City Plan withdrawn by recommendation of the Government Inspector, to date they have been unable to adopt any modifications to the plan. Should our elected members continue to avoid tough decision making in favour of local votes, the council are in danger of the power to decide how much and where development should go reverting to central government.

The petition will now be presented to the Council meeting on the 23 October 2014 rather than the Policy & Resources Committee meeting on 16th.

This ePetition ran from 06/08/2014 to 22/10/2014 and has now finished.

125 people signed this ePetition.