10.1 Neil Stonehill, Brighton Holiday Homes (BHH) spoke to
the panel first.
Mr Stonehill said that
he had attended the first meeting, where residents had told the
panel about the problems they had had with short term holiday lets.
Mr Stonehill said that none of the
properties that had been mentioned were BHH properties but he
sympathised with what those residents had reported. However Mr
Stonehill felt that there was a
disproportionate response in the context of the whole holiday
let industry in Brighton which could destroy a sector which is a
significant economic contributor to the town. He felt that the large majority of operators were
considerate and were making every effort to act
responsibly.
10.2 Mr
Stonehill said that in the last year,
Environmental Health had received 1862 noise complaints in total
from general domestic houses and apartments in the Brighton area;
only 8 of this pertained to holiday lets, of any size or any
website. Over a three year period there were 30 complaints relating
to all types of holiday lets.
Mr Stonehill also felt
that the number of holiday lets in Brighton & Hove used as
accommodation for hen and stag groups had been greatly exaggerated.
There are 78 sole agency properties and 28 multi agency properties
that are active (which can accommodate 10 or more people). BHH
manage over a third of that total.
10.3 Mr
Stonehill said that it had been implied
that people tended not to report noise to the council if
its from a holiday let, but felt that
this did not make sense. The three cases highlighted in the first
meeting made complaints to the council and the 1862 people with
residential noise complaints managed to complain to the council so
why were there so few holiday let complaints?
10.4 Mr
Stonehill said that the scrutiny panel
had been encouraging people to come forward with complaints as part
of the evidence gathering but that this did not produce high
numbers of people reporting problems, which you might expect if
there were large numbers of people suffering in silence. Some of
the people who spoke at the first meeting had had issues in the
past rather than new cases of people who are raising current
concerns, for example a .property in Ovingdean which stopped being used as a holiday let
over three years ago but is still mooted as an example.
10.5
Mr Stonehill said that
BHH has run its own noise patrol for the last five years out of
choice, not because they were asked to do so. Nrighbours have the contact details and can call
throughout the night if there is any disturbance. The average
response time is less than 10 minutes.
The noise patrol moves between their
properties on a rotational basis all night long, attending the
larger houses every 35 minutes throughout this time. It has a GPS
tracker so they can check which properties have been visited. The
patrol will speak to the guests if they do hear anything untoward
regardless of whether they have been contacted by a neighbour or
not. BHH feels that this is why no complaints were made to
Environmental Health about them last year.
Mr Stonehill
said that a significant proportion of the calls turn out to be
regarding noise that is actually coming from a nearby student house
or domestic dwelling rather than from one of our houses. The patrol
keeps logs of any other significant noise in
the local vicinity, for example if there is a student house having
a party or a pub which is being particularly noisy. This helps to
protect BHH from being blamed for noise in a street when actually
we know the guests are out and the lights are off.
10.6 BHH
tells its guests before they book, on their confirmation and in the
property itself that it is not a party house and that considerate
behaviour towards local residents is a condition of their booking.
Parties are not permitted in the house. In the extremely rare event
that a party is taking place in a property it can be stopped very
quickly and guests are told that they will be ejected from the
property and lose their deposit for failure to comply.
The noise patrol tends to receive calls about low
level issues, especially when put into the context of their
locations where there are already pubs or clubs nearby with people
outside smoking, or off the seafront where there is already a heavy
footfall of night time economy pedestrians.
10.7 Mr Stonehill said that
his noise patrol responds more quickly and to reports of lower
level issues than the council’s noise patrol would. He said
that if a long term tenant is causing noise nuisance, the council
has its own procedures for addressing them beginning with
mediation, keeping noise diaries and gathering evidence for a very
long period and so on. Short term holiday lets can respond much
more quickly to complaints. They have authority to tell people
politely but firmly to keep the noise down or risk the loss of
their deposit; they can also be evicted immediately.
10.8 In
terms of finance, BHH’s figures
show that every summer weekend, £300,000 goes back into the
local economy from the spend from their
residents. This can be extended to extra income throughout the
year.
Mr Stonehill said that
his staff wages bill for last year was well in excess of
£250,000 and will be higher this year. He feels a sense of
pride that BHH is in a position to create really good jobs with
good salaries. There is also considerable income for the cleaning
company, who have a full time staff of 16, and extra people in
summer. In addition there are handymen, plumbers etc who all
benefit from BHH’s
business.
10.9 Mr
Stonehill said that if people feel that
they are being turned away from Brighton, it will have huge effects
on jobs in the private tourism sector and will inevitably trickle
down to the public sector and will cost jobs there as well.
Brighton & Hove cannot afford to be a dying seaside
resort.
If planning and over regulation take effect the
agencies with well managed properties will disappear. Those less
concerned with the law will doubtless find ways to operate with no
regard for noise issues or safety.
Hotels will not accept stag/ hen groups in any kind
of numbers; they would divert to other towns and take their
spending power with them. Tourism is vital to Brighton and Hove and
good quality, well managed holiday lets are a vital part of that
tourism industry as they are all over the country. Removing short
term holiday lets from the offer will have an impact on the whole
industry and entire city.
10.10 The purpose of the
scrutiny panel is to come up with a gold standard of practice for
operating large group houses to minimise the negative impact on
local residents whilst acknowledging that properly managed
‘party houses’ can bring financial benefit to the city
contributing to the visitor economy. Mr Stonehill feels strongly that BHH together with the
other members of the Brighton Holiday Rentals Association are
already operating to a gold standard in this regard as well as in
other areas such as fire safety.
10.11
Responding to questions from the panel, Mr
Stonehill said that he regularly turned
down properties that were offered to him as holiday lets; for
example if they had a garden or in a non city centre location, he
would not accept them onto BHH’s
books. He had taken on some more houses in the last year, but also
lost a few, so the numbers were fairly steady.
10.12
All of BHH’s
properties have had fire assessments and all of the necessary steps
put in place.
10.13
Mr Stonehill said that
he would consider putting contact details for his noise patrol onto
all of BHH’s properties so that
everyone was aware of the contact details at all times. He
clarified that the patrol operates every weekend and on Sunday
evenings on bank holiday weekends too.
10.14
Mr Stonehill commented
that the problems that had existed in Roedean had arisen when the industry was very new
and they were not aware of all of the problems that might arise. He
did not think that it would happen again, as operators and owners
have learnt from all of their shared experience over the last few
years.
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