Brighton & Hove Council has given the go-ahead for a tough new crackdown on short lets in a bid to reclaim homes for locals.
Councillors agreed to amend its new city plan to add a clause in leases for new builds that they couldn’t be used for full-time short-term lets and to introduce zones in the city where short let development would be restricted.
They voted to lobby the secretary of state for a new planning use class for short-term lets with no permitted development rights and for any future licensing registration scheme to have data sharing of owners and addresses across public authorities and local statutory partners.
The council agreed to look at parking permits for short-term lets as a new funding stream. Councillor Jacob Taylor said: “In our city we have zones that are very very tight parking zones with almost no capacity - we'd have to figure out what giving spaces and allocating spaces for in relation to short-term lets the impact would be.”
He insisted the measures did not mean Brighton & Hove was anti-tourist. “We’re very pro-tourism,” he said. “This is about saying ‘Have we currently got the right balance in the use of what were built as residential houses for use for the local population and for short-term lets?’ My sense is the answer is no.”
Councillor Amanda Evans said there were between 4,000 and 6,000 adverts for full-time short-term lets in the city while only 400 or so were registered as businesses. “There are many people who may not even be aware they’re breaking current law in as much as they’re not registered as businesses, they’re not paying business rates or business taxes or business waste disposal arrangements,” she said.
Evans added: “If you build a million new houses a year it’s not much use to you if 90% of the ones that you’re building in tourist areas like Brighton and Hove end up being short-term lets. Local areas must be given more ability to manage their own areas.”
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