Yesterday afternoon, Brighton & Hove city council planners met to discuss potential new housing schemes within Brighton & Hove. However, now it seems there will likely be fewer affordable homes than was originally agreed.
The site being discussed is the old maternity hospital in Buckingham Road and the initial plan was to include nine affordable homes (or 40%) in line with council policy. Approximately half of those homes would have been to rent.
The planning permission was given last October to demolish the original site in favour of building a five-storey block of 20 flats, while the Victorian properties at 76 to 79 Buckingham Road would be converted into four townhouses.
Now it seems that developer, Buckingham Developments, has claimed that its scheme would not be viable if 40% of its homes were to be classed as affordable. So, yesterday afternoon the council’s planning committee agreed to a set of alternative options in the hope of reaching an agreement with the developer.
The options would be nine affordable homes for shared ownership or six for rent. Alternatively the developers could offer a payment, known as a commuted sum, of £860,000 so that the council can fund affordable homes elsewhere.
Last year in December another developer, Crest Nicholson, was granted permission to pay £1.2 million instead of building eight affordable homes at a site in Hove, where they were putting up 47 flats.