A local campaign organisation has personally delivered a letter to housing secretary Steve Reed calling on him to back a push for social and key-worker accommodation on a hospital campus.
Representatives from community groups, religious organisations, school leaders and higher education institutions were accompanied by Chris Ward, MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, and Lord Steve Bassam at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on Tuesday.
In the correspondence, Brighton and Hove Citizens, described as the city’s biggest coalition of civil society bodies, sought an urgent update on talks about the location, as well as support and action to maintain the Brighton General Hospital site in public ownership.
The letter explained that residents, local MPs, council officers and NHS managers all agree that obtaining funding for a new medical centre, allowing a significant portion of the Brighton General Hospital site to be made available for genuinely-affordable and key-worker housing, is the appropriate course of action.
Sussex Community NHS Trust voted to dispose of most of the Brighton General Hospital site on Elm Grove to commercial housing developers in 2018.
Health leaders at the time indicated they required the proceeds to construct a new community medical facility, accommodating all services currently provided at the location.
In 2020, the trust set out to develop detailed proposals and commence planning consultation with a target of finishing the new medical centre by 2024. However, no construction work on the new facility has started since that time.
The site’s future was examined at a board meeting in September the previous year, encompassing plans for a new community health and wellbeing hub on the former ambulance station grounds.
According to the trust, the hub is intended to be financed primarily through the sale of remaining land on site for residential development.
The board sanctioned progression of the hub, though sign-off from NHS England is required.
Brighton and Hove Citizens, the local arm of Citizens UK, maintains the scheme has stalled and the site runs the risk of being gradually sold to private developers, with no assurance of affordable homes for local residents.
The group is now seeking ministerial assistance with financing to preserve the significant site in public ownership and deliver both a new medical hub and hundreds of genuinely-affordable homes.
In March the previous year, deputy council leader Jacob Taylor explained that Brighton and Hove City Council aims to collaborate with the trust to establish social housing at the location while also assisting with constructing the long-promised medical hub on the land.
Cllr Taylor suggested this could be an outstanding location that could prove beneficial for Brighton residents, the trust and the council, noting it is not far from the town centre, has good bus connections and is close to schools. He believed the council wants the trust to partner with them, whether through a proposal put forward with Citizens UK or through the council and trust collaborating, and felt something truly remarkable could be created there.
Brighton nurse Chidi Ezikpe, who is employed by the local NHS, reports that the accommodation shortage is already affecting front-line services. He explained that he enjoys his work and this city but does not know how much longer he will be able to afford to remain there. He has seen numerous colleagues including nurses, ambulance personnel and support workers leave and relocate simply because they cannot make the finances work. Whenever someone departs, the burden on the rest of them intensifies. He believes this site could form part of the solution and it would be regrettable to see it disposed of instead.
A student at Cardinal Newman Catholic School, one of several educational institutions supporting the campaign, expressed concern about the possibility of being unable to afford to remain in Brighton. The pupil explained that Brighton is where they have grown up, where their friends are, and where they wish to establish their life. However when considering house prices and rents in the city, it is alarming, and they are concerned that people their age will never be able to stay and reside in the city they cherish.
Campaigners note the letter, the second dispatched to Mr Reed since January, represents a direct challenge to a government that has repeatedly committed to accelerating affordable housing delivery and reforming planning.
Brighton and Hove Citizens leader Nick Wells described this as precisely the type of scheme ministers claim they wish to see: public land utilised for public benefit, addressing both a housing shortage and a recruitment problem simultaneously. He noted that residents, the council, the NHS Trust and MPs all endorse the approach forward, and the only element absent is a determination from government. He added that every additional month of hesitation represents another month that key workers are unable to afford to live in the city where they work.