Council profile: Brighton rocked

Brighton & Hove has left its past as a tacky tourist trap behind: these days, it is popularly dubbed "London by the sea" and was even granted city status in 2002.

With its new-found confidence, the city council is not afraid to stand up to the government when planning for the future. That's just as well, because Brighton & Hove council has had more than its share of rows with Whitehall.

Disagreements over the right to buy, the inspections regime and targets for affordable housing have marked Brighton & Hove as a plucky fighter. And over the next six months, it's going to have to keep its nerve as it struggles to find the £100m it needs to meet the decent homes standard and to raise its game from a one-star to three-star authority to unlock government grants.

The council loses more than 100 of its 13,000 homes to the right to buy every year. Last year, it applied to be one of the select group of South-eastern councils given the right to limit discounts, and was devastated to find that it had been left off the list.

Jack Hazelgrove, cabinet member for housing, fired off an angry letter to ministers late last year, but is still waiting for a response. "It may be that we need to make another application and let them know that nothing has changed," he says. "But with the Housing Bill going through parliament, the government is trying to avoid rocking the boat."

House prices in Brighton are some of the highest outside London – to buy a one-bedroom flat, a person would need to be earning more than £37,000 a year. The draft local plan, due to be adopted by the end of the year, attempts to ease the crisis by insisting that developers provide at least 40% affordable housing on developments of 10 or more homes. For example, 40% of the 400 homes to be built on the King Alfred site in Hove, designed by Frank Gehry, will be affordable.

But government inspectors enraged the council by attempting to block the plan with claims that such a high target would discourage developers. They recommended 25% instead.

Councillors look set to ignore the inspectors and press ahead with their original 40% target when they come to formally adopt the local plan.

"Have you seen Brighton?" asks Hazelgrove. "Nothing's going to stop people building here."

Another bone of contention is the inspection regime. The council hit out at the Audit Commission last year when it was dropped from a "good" to "fair" rating in the comprehensive performance assessment because of a change in the way housing performance was rated (HT 19 December 2003, page 8).

But, with more than half of its homes failing to meet the decent homes standard and a £100m funding gap, the council has to look to the future.

It is consulting tenants on whether to transfer or set up an arm's-length management organisation and is remaining tight-lipped about its preference until the tenants' views are in, this July.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the government will announce a fifth round of ALMO funding, or that the council will be able to lift its one-star performance to the two-star minimum required of ALMOs.

To some extent, the council is working on a wing and a prayer. "We can't just sit around waiting for things that may or may not come," says Hazelgrove.

No one knows what the chancellor Gordon Brown will announce in this summer's comprehensive spending review and it may mean the council has to square up to government once again.

But, given the newly born city's feisty track record, the smart money is on Brighton & Hove.