Our goal is to deliver accessible, affordable, and high-quality homes for all residents of Brighton & Hove.
We will continue to invest in council homes with almost £37 million allocated to our planned and major works programmes for 2025/26. The health and safety of our residents and those who visit and work on our homes is our key priority. Following the judgement from the Regulator of Social Housing, we will continue our work to deliver compliance and improvements in building, health and fire safety in our homes with investment of almost £15.2 million in 2025/26. We will continue to reduce our backlog and increase the number of routine housing repairs completed on time.
We will continue our work to improve standards in the private rented sector. This includes reviewing our enforcement policies and taking a zero-tolerance approach to rogue landlords. We will review the impact of our Selective Licensing Scheme introduced in 2024 and begin the phased extension of the scheme to more wards in the city. We will prepare for the introduction of new legislation on renters' rights, including the extension of the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector and the application of Awaab’s Law. We want to ensure that all rented homes are made safe where they contain serious hazards, in particular damp and mould.
The update of the City Plan will set out the strategic planning framework to 2041. We will use this to set revised housing delivery targets and to address the mix of housing that the city needs, including the need for more affordable family homes. For context, there were 6,422 on Housing Register at the end of March 2025 with 583 social housing lets in 2024/25.
We have committed in our housing strategy to deliver at least 2,000 affordable homes over the next 5 years. In 2025/26 we aim to deliver 418 affordable homes including 110 additional council homes. Our successful ‘buy back’ programme has delivered over 400 homes so far with a further 72 expected to complete this year. Work begins on our largest New Homes for Neighbourhoods Scheme to date in Moulsecoomb this year which will deliver 208 new homes. As part of our long-term programme of investment, in 2025/26 we will invest just over £50 million in creating additional council homes for the future. We will also create additional social housing lets by reducing under-occupancy to make best use of available housing in the city.
We will develop a Housing Company in 2025 with the goal of improving our ability to provide decent quality temporary housing and increase housing supply.
We will continue work to reduce the number of second homes in the city, including the introduction of a 100% council tax premium on second homes from 1 April 2025. We will participate in a government led research project on a potential new national registration scheme and new planning use class on short term lets.
We will take forward the refurbishment or regeneration of our 8 large panel system housing blocks to design and create better homes with the right infrastructure for our tenants and residents for decades to come. This programme of work will be a catalyst in driving wider placemaking across our neighbourhoods and estates.
We will undertake a statutory review of homelessness in the city and develop a new homelessness and rough sleeping strategy, setting out our priorities for the next five years, including our aim to eradicate rough sleeping in the city.
Working with our partners in the city’s Multiple Compound Needs Partnership, we will continue to integrate our specialist homelessness, rough sleeping and homeless healthcare services.
Faced with a 10% increase in placements in temporary accommodation in 2024/25 we aim to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation, by further improving homelessness prevention as well as increasing move-on support and housing options for people placed in temporary accommodation by using data to support households at the earliest opportunity where they are at risk of becoming homeless.
We will work with people with lived experience of homelessness to improve our homelessness and housing options service offer. We will take forward key recommendations made in the Safe Haven by the Sea report to improve housing solutions for domestic abuse survivors.
We will continue to work to improve customer satisfaction, including satisfaction with repairs and phone and email response times. We recognise that a key part of customer satisfaction among tenants and leaseholders is knowing that we are listening to them and learning from their feedback, being proactively transparent about the safety and quality of stock as well as the quality of experience of our landlord services.
We will work to become a great landlord where tenants know that they are valued and are treated with respect; and where the staff who work with residents are empowered and have the time to be creative and kind. We will strengthen delivery of resident focused
housing services, investing nearly £1.8 million in 2025/26 to expand and improve our tenancy services, including training frontline staff to use a psychologically informed approach and implementing a new policy to deal with hate incidents. We will continue to work to address anti-social behaviour and improve community spaces on our estates. We will work to engage and involve our tenants and leaseholders, including residents of Large Panel System blocks, as we make decisions about the future of the blocks.
We will improve support for our most vulnerable residents and tenants with a greater focus on early intervention and reflective practice.
We will review and improve supported living services including reviewing our seniors housing support model. We will deliver a new council-run supported-living scheme with 28 homes providing long-term affordable accommodation for people with physical disabilities and brain injuries. We will prepare for the anticipated changes to supported housing standards and develop a supported housing strategy as required under the Supported Housing (Regulatory) Oversight Act 2023.