Cabinet Agenda Item 25
Subject: Housing Strategy (2024-29) – Monitoring Report 2024/25
Date of meeting: 17 July 2025
Report of: Cabinet Member for Housing & New Homes
Lead Officer: Corporate Director Homes & Adult Social Care
Contact Officer: Diane Hughes
Tel: 01273 293159
Email: diane.hughes@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Ward(s) affected: All
Key Decision: Yes
Reason(s) Key: Is significant in terms of its effects on communities living or working in an area comprising two or more electoral divisions (wards).
1.1 The Brighton & Hove Housing Strategy (2024-29) and Action Plan 2024/25 was agreed by Full Council in October 2024 and sets out the vision on how best to deliver the city’s housing objectives based around the following five priorities:
· Improve housing quality, safety, and sustainability
· Deliver the homes our city needs
· Prevent homelessness and meet housing need
· Promote improved health and wellbeing for all
· Provide resident focused housing services
1.2 The strategy contributes to the delivery of all four strategic outcomes in the Council Plan 2023 to 2027. It contains actions that will help us create a city to be proud of, a fair and inclusive city, and a healthy city where people thrive. It also contributes to our goal of being a responsive council with well-run services. The action plan focuses our efforts to deliver accessible, affordable, and high-quality homes for everyone in Brighton & Hove.
1.3 This report provides an update on the progress made towards each of these objectives through delivery of the action plan (April 2024- March 2025) and includes proposed actions for 2025-26.
2.1 That Cabinet consider and note the progress made towards the ambitions set out in the Housing Strategy 2024-29 and agrees actions to be undertaken in 2025-26 as set out at Appendix 1.
Context and background information
3.1 The Housing Strategy sets out a long-term vision linked to a programme of work designed to tackle the city’s housing challenges and priorities. In the first year (2024-25), 34 strategic actions were identified. Some were stand-alone pieces of work with others covering activities that will continue throughout the lifetime of the strategy. 15 of these actions are complete with the remaining 19 progressing. Where work is continuing into 2025-26 these actions are included in the Year 2 action plan at Appendix 1.
3.2 Progress against the strategy continues to be made against a backdrop of significant financial challenges and service pressures. This is particularly felt in:
· The number of homeless household presentations and provision of temporary accommodation
· Investment in council owned stock to maintain quality and safety standards and
· Limitations in the city’s geography presenting challenges in expanding housing supply at the rate that is needed.
Priority 1: Improve housing quality, safety, and sustainability
3.3 Ensuring the safety and quality of our council homes is a key priority for the council. We are committed to maintain our continuous improvement of the standard of our council housing stock. Helping residents live in well insulated, efficiently heated, healthy homes is a key investment objective, supported through our Housing Revenue Account (HRA) capital programme. In terms of asset management, there is a particular emphasis on improvements in property insulation, window installation, and mechanical ventilation. Our 2025/26 HRA budget includes investment of over £56m on improving existing council homes, including increasing our investment in damp and condensation measures as well as our overall investment in planned and major capital works, in addition to sustainability and health & safety measures.
3.4 This year the council has faced significant challenges in maintaining compliance with its housing safety and quality standards highlighted in the regulatory judgement issued by the Regulator of Social Housing in August 2024 which confirmed a consumer grading of C3. Since then, there has been intense engagement with the Regulator of Social Housing with regular updates to Cabinet and Place Overview & Scrutiny Committee to ensure ongoing oversight and accountability. The last update was considered at Cabinet on 15 May 2025. Areas of concern include electrical safety, provision of smoke detection, water safety, fire safety actions, and the backlog of routine repairs.
3.5 To help address this we invested £13.9 million in health and safety improvements in 2024-25. The following table outlines our progress with key areas of compliance:
.
|
Investment |
Responsive Repairs |
Fire Risk Assessments |
Smoke Detection |
Electrical Certification |
Water Risk Assessments |
Compliance met |
|
£13.9 million in 2024-25 |
Backlog steadily declining, aim to clear by December 2025 |
8,000 actions identified, focus on highest priority |
97.7% of homes completed as of March 2025 |
4,626 tests completed in 2024/25, 75% of homes in line with 5-year cycle |
253 assessments carried out |
Gas safety
Asbestos management
Carbon monoxide detection
Lift safety |
|
|
|
2,000 actions completed, 6,204 outstanding by March 2025 |
|
On track to complete by December 2026 |
|
|
3.6 We are also currently working with East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (ESFRS) who have served formal notices under the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005 on 10 high rise blocks at the Bristol Estate in March. We put in place a comprehensive approach to manage the incident. Our initial response was to introduce a waking watch to each of these blocks pending the completion of the more urgent works. We have now completed works to five of the blocks but retain the waking watch to the other five. We have a comprehensive plan to meet the requirements of the notices and are working closely with colleagues at ESFRS to ensure compliance is achieved in an appropriate time scale.
3.7 We have continued to be committed to our net zero ambitions. 640 new solar Photovoltacics (PV) systems have been installed across the housing stock to June 2025 with 22 domestic batteries installed as part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero funded project Flexibility Assets & Smart Homes (FLASH). The low carbon upgrade of heating and hot water services at the temporary accommodation scheme Manoj House has been completed with insulation improvements carried out as part of the repairs and maintenance works to deal with damp and condensation. A bid for the Warm Homes Social Housing Fund was successful and a programme to retrofit 100 of our least efficient homes will be completed between 2025-28.
3.8 We completed our final year of delivery of the Warm Safe Homes grant scheme which benefited residents living in the private sector on low incomes. The council is part of a consortium of local authorities led by Portsmouth City Council who has successfully bid for new Warm Homes Local Grant (£26m over 3 years) which will improve energy efficiency and heating systems of energy inefficient and low-income private homes in the city. In addition, we have jointly developed with Public Health a revised Fuel Poverty and Affordable Warmth Plan which was agreed at the Health and Wellbeing Board in November 2024. This sets out advice and support to vulnerable households and identifies key objectives to tackle fuel poverty across the city with partners.
3.9 A new partnering contract went live in January 2025 to help the Repairs & Maintenance Service source the materials required to repair council homes. The contract with builders’ merchant Huws Gray will improve the service we provide to tenants. A new dedicated materials store has been set up in the city exclusively for the council, the store will be used as a one stop shop for our repairs operatives to stock up with the products needed to complete a range of repairs. Smartphone App technology will be used to manage van stock, order the parts required, and provide data reports to track our repairs performance and spending.
3.10 The contract will help increase the number of repairs completed on time, support the city’s economy, and will ultimately reduce the number of journeys taken to source materials. Over the next 5 years we will be working with Huws Gray to deliver the social value commitments and sustainability actions to help reduce our carbon footprint.
3.11 Continued investment in our housing stock is key to ensuring our assets are well maintained and our five-year programmes for major and planned capital works commenced. Examples of these programmes this year include Bates Estate, Craven Vale, Westmount, Philip Court, and Milner Flats. We started work on a new Asset Management Strategy which is due for consideration at Cabinet later this year. This will provide us with a clear plan for investment in our homes ensuring the right approaches and actions are in place. The financial sustainability of the HRA is required to fund commitments relating to having high quality homes and in addressing the regulatory judgement. We will consider financial strategies to achieve this and develop a financial framework with some target financial metrics to guide decision making and enhance transparency.
3.12 Our work to decide on the future of the eight large panel system blocks has continued this year with a programme update considered by Cabinet in March 2025. This included an interim offer for leaseholders who would like to sell back their properties to the council now. This was in recognition of the extraordinary circumstances that they faced and highlights our commitment to offering real choice to residents in the blocks.Involving residents in decisions affecting the blocks is crucial and new resident advisory groups have been set up for the eight affected blocks. A detailed options appraisal on the future of the blocks will be considered at July Cabinet setting out our next steps.
3.13 Improving the safety, quality and management of the private rented homes is a key priority for the city. During the year:
· 599 requests for assistance were received
· We introduced two new five-year licensing schemes with 6,500 applications received
· Completed 651 visits
· Started investigating 70 potential unlicensed properties
Inspections are now taking place and licenses issued across our two licensing schemes (citywide Additional Licensing Scheme for smaller HMO’s and our first Selective Licensing Scheme for 4 wards in the city). These schemes are already helping to improve property conditions with officers ensuring compliance with licence conditions and addressing hazards that they identify.
3.14 Enforcement action has been taken where necessary against landlords who have failed to comply with improving property conditions and where landlords are in breach of Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES). We have:
· Contacted almost 1,000 landlords regarding MEES with 450 improving their EPC rating to reach the required level. The more energy efficient the homes the less it will cost for tenants to heat and light their homes.
· Issued a final warning to 60 landlords and we are undertaking final checks ahead of serving notices.
· Served 15 notices for poor property conditions
· Taken a zero-tolerance approach to rogue landlords, acting on cases for unlawful eviction and harassment.
Priority 2: Deliver the homes the city needs
3.15 A core aim of the Housing Strategy is to deliver at least 2,000 affordable homes over the lifetime of the strategy. We will achieve this through delivering our own supply and by working with Registered Providers and developers to increase the supply of affordable housing across the city, via a range of options. This will include those at social and affordable rents, low-cost home ownership and other products such as Build to Rent. We have developed our approach to affordability considering the increasing cost of living and prioritising social rent wherever possible in our new build schemes. Increasingly our focus is on providing family homes and there are currently 35 larger homes (3+ beds) included in Registered Provider developments, and 100 as part of our own council developments.
3.16 In terms of affordable housing, the last 12 months has seen 226 completions. This included 95 homes delivered by the council exceeding our year target of 78. These homes were delivered through our ‘buy backs’ acquisitions programme plus off plan purchases at the former St Aubyn's School in Rottingdean.
3.17 The council has successfully bid for three rounds of Local Authority Housing Fund grant funding (£4.4m) which has enabled us to purchase homes for council owned temporary accommodation and to also provide housing to resettle Afghan families further supporting our commitment to being a City of Sanctuary. In 2024/25 five properties were purchased for Afghan families. In total we have resettled 42 households (186 individuals) of the Afghan resettlement programmes from the start of the programme until the end of March 2025.
3.18 Beneficiaries of the Afghan Resettlement Programme, whether housed in properties purchased through the Local Authority Housing Fund or in the private rental sector are offered a holistic package of support, funded through central government grants. Local charity Voices in Exile are commissioned to provide intensive casework, English language and employability support for two years following arrival. They work closely with the Homelessness Prevention, Housing Solutions and Welfare Benefits teams, Department for Work & Pensions, as well as Sussex Interpreting Services and a range of providers in the community and voluntary sector. Afghans are assisted to register with English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses in the city’s colleges and to learn about the UK jobs market, with a view to them being able to sustain themselves after the casework support ends. Children are supported into schools by the English as an Additional Language and Travellers Team (EALTS) who also carry out home- school liaison.
3.19 Delivery will accelerate each year with forecasts showing that we are on course to meet our ultimate target of at least 2,000 new affordable homes by 2029. In 2025/26 we will deliver:
|
Current Pipeline |
Investment 2025/26 |
Homes Targeted |
New build locations |
Registered Providers and Build to Rent providers delivery |
Total homes this year |
|
New build and acquisitions for the council |
£50m |
110 homes |
Brickfields, Hove (28) Frederick Street (4) Palace Place (11) |
308 affordable homes |
418 homes |
3.20 Contractors to deliver our largest New Homes for Neighbourhoods scheme in Moulsecoomb (208 homes) were selected in January 2025 and will be commencing works from September 2025. Beyond this year the council has a longer-term pipeline of over 560 homes. We know that the need is acute with 1,900 households in temporary accommodation and over 6,400 households on the Housing Register. To deliver on our ambitions we need to sustain momentum, look at all options to unlock delivery and work with partners to deliver on the full diversity of housing required by all residents to thrive in the city. This includes reflecting on the strategic importance of devolution for housing supply. This includes longer term funding deals to help with housing ambitions, with control of grant funding for regeneration and housing delivery.
3.21 Building on our successful partnership with Hyde ‘Homes for Brighton & Hove’, a further site at Sackville Road has been identified to help the partnership meet its initial objective to deliver 1,000 lower cost homes in the city.
|
Partnership with Hyde |
Site |
Homes |
Social Rent Homes |
Cabinet Approval |
Planning Application submitted |
Estimated Site Start Date |
|
Homes for Brighton & Hove |
Sackville Road, Hove |
306 |
186 |
June 2024 |
June 2025 |
March 2026 |
3.22 We continue to look at novel housing delivery methods and are working with Building with Prisoners who are reviewing the feasibility of a small modular development on council owned land.
3.23 As well as new supply we want to make best use of our current homes, and we continue to work to reduce under occupation freeing up family sized homes to let. In 2024/25, 21 households moved under the Tenant Incentive Scheme. We have increased the transfer incentive amounts from April 2025 and will be launching a new publicity campaign to promote the scheme and reach households. In addition, we will be reviewing cross-sector learning and options with Registered Providers in the year ahead.
3.24 Empty Homes, second homes and short term lets continue to impact on the local housing market, reducing the supply of permanent accommodation in the city. A 100% council tax charge on homes empty over one year was introduced in April 2024 and we have worked with 145 owners whose properties were empty over a year to bring their homes back into use. A 100% council tax charge was also implemented in April 2025 on second homes to act as a further deterrent to keeping homes empty.
3.25 Place Scrutiny & Overview Committee undertook a Task and Finish Group review short term lets earlier this year and put forward several recommendations which were considered at Cabinet in June 2025. The recommendations cover several areas including lobbying of central government, improving information on the Council’s website, and several areas for further consideration in respect of planning, licensing/registration and parking permits.
3.26 The current Government have acknowledged the impact short term lets can have and are considering their options regarding a national registration scheme and the introduction of a new planning use class. We have expressed an interest in participating in a research project with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to support the roll out of these proposals.
3.27 The City Plan is due to be adopted in 2028 with several key stages in the process. The early-stage review on the city plan ended in January 2025 with the next stage of public consultation currently scheduled for Summer 2026, which will include draft policies.
Priority 3: Prevent homelessness and meet housing need
3.28 A new Allocations Policy was agreed by Cabinet in October 2024 which has now been implemented. Changes to the policy aim to help create more opportunities to prevent homelessness, reduce reliance on temporary accommodation, and create more options. This includes allowing statutorily overcrowded households in need of a 4 or 5-bedroom home to move to a smaller property (by 1 bedroom) if they do not exceed occupancy numbers and providing households with a broader range of properties to bid on. There were 6,422 on Housing Register at the end of March 2025 with 583 social housing lets in 2024/25.
3.29 We have implemented the Homelessness Transformation Strategy which seeks to improve the customer journey for people facing homelessness and maximising opportunities to prevent homelessness. This included a redesign of how our services are delivered, and this is currently embedding to improve prevention outcomes. The new Housing Advice and Triage Team has contributed to a 7% increase in customer satisfaction and 19% increase in customers feeling that the service is more accessible. We know there is more work to do and want to ensure that more households approach us early.
3.30 A key strategic aim is to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation, ensuring residents have access to stable housing and addressing the unsustainable financial cost of providing temporary accommodation. The success in doing so is linked to homeless preventions and increasing our prevention outcomes is key to ensure we can bring overall temporary accommodation levels down. Whilst we have not succeeded in bringing down our reliance in 2024/25 (1,970 households at the end of March 25) we have not seen the level of increase experienced in comparable local authorities.
We have several actions aimed at addressing the pressures covering:
· Homelessness prevention,
· Temporary accommodation procurement
· Maximising the supply of social housing including council owned temporary accommodation. In 2025/26 new council owned temporary accommodation will be provided at Palace Place (11 homes) and through individual buy backs of former council homes.
· Rehousing households in other forms of settled housing.
In addition, we recognise that we need to improve temporary accommodation, so it becomes a more positive experience for residents, and we will ensure there is robust contract management in place for our current provision.
3.31 Work commenced on updating the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy which will run from 2025 to 2030. It will set out how the council and its partners will work together towards ending homelessness and identifies 3 key priorities and places emphasis on prevention, reducing households in temporary accommodation and focusing on assisting people who need the most help. The strategy development will be informed by a review of homelessness in the city. The input of people with lived experience of homelessness and public and voluntary sector will also help shape the strategy with a range of stakeholder engagement activity already underway and formal public consultation for 8 weeks launching in August to inform its content. A key facet of the update includes aligning it with the aims of the cities multiple compound needs programme. It is anticipated that this piece of work will be completed by December 2025.
3.32 Supporting our most vulnerable residents is essential to ensure a better quality of life. We commissioned Single Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Supported Accommodation in 2024/25 and agreed our 16 and17 year old and Care Leavers Housing Protocols. In addition, we launched the Violence against Women and Girls, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy 2025-28 in January which includes providing a range of support service and accommodation options. We will continue to progress a project to take forward reciprocal arrangements with neighbouring authorities in partnership with Stonewater.
Priority 4: Support improved health and wellbeing for all
3.33 It is important that we enable residents to live in their own homes as long as possible, and the council deliver adaptations across the range of tenures to help enable this. In 2024/25 we delivered the following
|
Year |
Investment |
Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grants |
Adaptations to Council Households |
Total major adaptations delivered |
Additional discretionary grants e.g. hospital discharge |
|
2024/25 |
£4.492m |
171 |
232 |
403 |
87 |
To improve waiting list times, we undertook a bath out pilot whereby accessible shower adaptations are completed without delay in all tenures. This pilot proved successful in reducing waiting times and is now standard practice. Waiting times significantly reduced during the pilot from 8 months to 3.5 months, as did the total number on the waiting list. The Adaptations Service was shortlisted in 2024 for the Outstanding Achievement of the Year at the Foundations National Health Housing Awards for this approach.
3.34 Preparation is also underway for the implementation of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023. The act includes powers to introduce a licensing regime for supported housing and the power to set supported housing standards for England. It also places a duty on local housing authorities to produce supported housing strategies to understand current availability and future need for supported housing. The council has contributed to the recent consultation on these provisions and is working alongside other local authorities in Sussex to explore opportunities for cross Sussex working.
3.35 We want to ensure that residents can live in safe and well-maintained neighbourhoods and feeling safe in their homes is key. Work to support this priority includes consulting on a new Hate Incidents Policy for council housing with a final draft due to be presented later this year. We instigated a review of procedures on noise nuisance and through joint working across the council have put in place an increased focus on early intervention and resolution of noise nuisance for residents. A clearer case review process for anti-social behaviour cases has also been implemented to ensure a more robust, responsive, and accessible service. We now have a Neighbourhood Team in place to provide a presence on our estates. This will allow for early identification and resolution of issues and a more responsive service. In addition, they will be recommencing a programme of estate inspections with residents and stakeholders.
3.36 The 2024-25 Public Health funded Warmth for Wellbeing programme delivered 40 in-depth Home Energy Checks, including energy saving advice, installation of free energy saving measures, financial support through local and national grants, prepayment meter energy vouchers and referrals to community & voluntary sector services and support. The programme also funded provision of electric heaters, electric blankets, and thermal curtains. The Fuel Poverty & Affordable Warmth (FPAW) Steering Group will work to mitigate the Warmth for Wellbeing programme funding reduction in 2025-26 through collaborative delivery to maximise all available resources, including externally funded schemes and support, particularly the local Energy Works Energy Advice Service and the national LEAP Energy Advice and Money Saving Service.
3.37 Featuring prominently in our work programmes has been a commitment to tackling damp and mould within our own homes. A team has been established to support this work, and we continue to receive over 2,000 damp and mould related repair requests per year, the vast majority between October and March. Our specific identified capital investment budget for Condensation & Damp works for 2025/26 to 2029/30 is £7.166m. We know there is more to do. In preparation for Awaab’s law in October a new protocol for addressing damp and mould will be agreed and resources increased to meet the demand. A communication campaign will be devised to raise awareness amongst tenants alongside a new training programme for staff.
Priority 5: Provide resident focused housing services
3.38 We want to ensure tenants’ views are at the heart of decision making in landlord services and ensure a wide range of voices are heard and listened to. We have continued utilising a range of ways to engage and consult including hosting a family orientated Tenant Conference in October 2024, launching the Your Voice engagement platform, social media, texting, and quick polls to gather more insight and input from residents. In March 2025 we held collaborative focus groups with tenants and staff to review customer insight into services to support our work towards being a great landlord. Our latest STAR survey results showed positive progress with 76% of respondents indicating that we treat them fairly and with respect. However more work needs to be done to ensure we listen and act upon views noting that only 53% of respondents think that we do.
3.39 Homes & Investment has an award-winning approach to apprenticeships and a strong track record of supporting local recruitment. We have now exceeded our apprentice target. The service supports 22 full time apprentices in a range of trades, with 4 colleagues completing apprenticeships alongside their existing job roles. Our Housing Repairs & Maintenance Team won an award for employer contribution to Apprenticeships at the city's annual apprenticeship graduation ceremony in November 2024.
3.40 Working in partnership to deliver the council’s Adult Learning Disability Strategy a Housing and Support working group is in place. A Housing and Support tile added to the Easy Read Hub website to provide more accessible information. A new approved provider list for supported living and community support is in place and an adult learning disability brokerage function established. Sussex Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) Network is also supporting development of a new service to support hospital discharge.
3.41 Providing resident-centred services is key. Our trauma informed approach continues to be embedded in practice with 12 reflective practitioners now trained across Housing. We have put in place an improved learning offer for teams on both trauma informed approach and learning disabilities/autism. Working in partnership also supports us to provide the best service to residents with Housing representatives on the Trauma Informed Multi Agency Group, Safeguarding Adult Board and Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Learning & Development groups.
3.42 We have continued our important work of integrating our specialist homeless, rough sleeping and homeless healthcare services through the Multiple Compound Needs Partnership by introducing an integrated community teams’ model. This helps to improve health and housing outcomes for some of the most marginalised people in our community.
4. Analysis and consideration of alternative options
4.1 All actions that the council commits to within the Housing Strategy need to be resourced with budgets allocated. This will ensure that an action plan is delivered. In addition, utilising partnership opportunities will be essential in delivering against the ambitions and the council will work creatively and collaboratively with partners to bring forward options for delivery.
5. Community engagement and consultation
5.1 Tenants deserve to be heard, respected, and involved in decisions affecting their homes. A culture of genuine engagement leads to better services and stronger communities. In 2024/25 we completed a range of engagement activities throughout the year with tenants, residents and stakeholders including
· Formal consultation on the Allocations Policy and Hate Incidents Policy
· Engaging with tenants through surveys, Residents Associations, Area Panels, Tenant Days
· Great Landlord workshops
· Stakeholder workshops on the revised Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy.
5.2 The increased use of different methods including the Great Landlord workshops, is to be welcomed. But there is more to do, and we need to transform tenant engagement, starting with an ambitious 2-year plan that takes us beyond regulatory compliance. We are aiming to improve and expand our resident engagement approach through genuine collaboration and co-production including a ‘taste of what’s possible when we listen’ engagement menu providing flexible opportunities for staff to listen and engage with residents.
5.3 The Year 2 Action Plan is reflective of feedback provided by residents on the Housing Strategy and the key areas of focus. Our priorities have also been driven by ongoing customer insight and areas of concern that have been highlighted to us by our tenants. We are using this feedback to continuously refine and improve the services we provide. As well as our tenants we need to ensure all other residents can input and contribute ensuring that we actively include and amplify the voices of minoritised groups in relevant decision-making processes.
6. Financial implications
6.1 The financial implications of implementing this strategy from 2025/26 onwards will be incorporated into the budget-setting processes and managed within the established budget constraints. The financial impacts arising from the strategy for 2025/26 must be accommodated within the budget approved in February 2025. Detailed gross budgets and funding for 2025/26, covering Housing General Fund services and the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), are outlined in the February’s budget report.
6.2 Significant elements of the strategy depend on financial and other resources from partners such as Homes England and MHCLG to ensure successful delivery.
6.3 The 2025/26 HRA capital programme reflects the required investment in Health & Safety, Building Safety and Fire Safety compliance alongside the planned maintenance, improvement programmes, major capital projects to council housing as well as new supply projects, linking investment plans to the Housing Strategy.
6.4 The strategy faces various challenges and risks including sourcing suitable properties at the right price and managing them effectively, with concerns about the pace of purchases and management costs.
6.5 The service has several savings and service pressure mitigation plans to hopefully offset any potential overspend at year-end. Changes in spending will be managed through Targeted Budget Management and reported as variances, addressed within existing resources, and considered in future budget settings.
Name of finance officer consulted: Ferrise Hall Date consulted 13 June 2025
7.1 This is a review report and there are no specific legal implications to be reported.
Name of lawyer consulted: Simon Court Date consulted 7 June 2025
8.1 The Housing Strategy was developed with an acknowledgement that housing inequality exists in Brighton & Hove. The vision of the Housing Strategy is ‘Homes for everyone’ and it is anticipated that the Housing Strategy will lead to improved outcomes relating to the condition and supply of housing across the city as well as promoting resilience and improved health and wellbeing. The anticipated benefits are expected to particularly affect those who are currently not suitably housed. This includes many of those covered under protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act (2010). It will also impact those with intersecting characteristics and people with care experience which the council has determined should be treated as a protected characteristic.
8.2 The report outlines a number of examples where work has taken place to support residents with protected characteristics. This includes delivery of adaptations, Afghan resettlement programme, domestic abuse strategy and protocols for supporting care leavers and younger people facing homelessness. Actions were identified in the Equality Impact Assessment that accompanied the strategy and an update on progress against this assessment will be reported at the next review.
9.1 Housing is one of the largest contributors to the city’s CO2 emissions. Reducing the energy used to build, heat, and operate homes is key to achieving our Net Zero ambitions. The Housing Strategy outlines steps we are taking to address sustainability and zero carbon challenges in new and existing stock in Brighton and Hove. Taking a multi tenure approach, our offer is shaped by working in partnership with others to deliver ambitions.
10.1 Having poor quality, unaffordable, inappropriate or lack of housing directly impacts people's ability to maintain their health, well-being, and independence. Measures to improve housing quality, tackle health and safety hazards, improve the environment and increase community cohesion will have a positive impact on health and contribute to tackling health inequalities.
11.1 The Housing Strategy aims to maximise overall value, including social value through our procurement and other activities. We encourage the use of local suppliers and contractors as well as identifying other opportunities to add value, for example, our in-house repairs and maintenance service provides opportunities for work experience and apprenticeships to local people.
12. Crime & disorder implications:
12.1 The strategy reinforces the continued need for services to support rough sleepers and those experiencing domestic abuse, and, on improving joint working with the police and other partners to ensure issues of harassment and hate crime are tackled effectively. It also identifies the need to create safe homes and neighbourhoods and to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour on our estates.
13.1 Progress is beginning to be made across all the Housing Strategy priorities. Whilst there remains a lot of work to do to meet our ambitions, the proposed action plan for 2025/26 provides the platform for continuing to make the required progress.
Supporting Documentation
1 Housing Strategy 2024-29
2 Housing Safety and Quality Compliance Update – Cabinet 15 May 2025