Selling Land in Brighton and Hove

Brighton and Hove City Council is a unitary council, formed in 1997 and made a city in 2001. It covers Brighton, Hove and Portslade with Mile Oak, and places such as Patcham, Woodingdean, Ovingdean, Rottingdean and Saltdean: about 283,870 people on roughly 83 square kilometres.

• Two sets of policy. The City Plan covers the city outside the National Park. Inside it the South Downs Local Plan applies and, as Part One says in its text to policy SA5, the Park Authority decides the applications.
• A plan 10 years old. City Plan Part One was adopted in March 2016 and looks ahead to 2030; Part Two followed on 20 October 2022. Neighbourhood plans have since been made for Rottingdean, Hove Station, Brighton Marina and West Saltdean.
• Delivery short of need. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counted 3,480 homes built against 6,980 required, or 50%.
• Eight development areas. Part One steers growth to areas from Central Seafront, Brighton Marina and Lewes Road to Hove Station, Toad's Hole Valley and Shoreham Harbour, which has a joint action plan with Adur District Council and others.

City Plan Part One does not hide the gap. It puts the city's objectively assessed need at 30,120 homes to 2030, or 1,506 a year, calls the sea and the Downs "very significant constraints" on fitting them in, and provides for 13,200, leaving 16,920 unmet under the duty to cooperate.

• The eight development areas: 2,786 homes. Lewes Road alone gives 1,097, including 447 at the University of Sussex's West Slope at Falmer; Hove Station adds 600 and Brighton Marina and Black Rock 430.
• Other sites of six homes or more: 948. Allocations, with and without permission, and other consents.
• Small sites with permission: 269. After a 30% cut on schemes not yet started, as only about 70% of small permissions are built.
• Prior approvals: 83. From 118 homes approved for conversion, cut by the same 30%.
• Small windfall sites: 394. From the third year, rising to 155 a year, the five-year average.

Small sites are the city's steadiest source: completions on sites of fewer than six homes have not dropped below 96 in any year since 2010/11, 62% of them conversions and changes of use.

Large sites move in steps. The assessment's tables show 1,499 completions in 2024/25, entering each finished site in full: Sackville Trading Estate (564), Preston Barracks (363) and Anston House (229). The monitoring report for the same year records 1,298 net, and the whole difference of 201 is Preston Barracks: 363 for the finished site in the assessment, 162 completed within the year in the monitoring report. The Brighton Marina Inner Harbour allocation, at 1,000 homes, has no application and falls wholly after 2030, while Toad's Hole Valley, with outline permission and counted at 1,062 homes against Part One's minimum of 700 under policy DA7, adds 400 in the last two years of the five.

1. Inside the built-up area. Plots, backland, large gardens, garages, empty shops and offices, and buildings that can be converted come under policy S4: homes are approved unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits. The assessment already counts petrol stations, Hove hotels and car parks.
2. Employment and commercial land. The assessment leaves out land where homes would conflict with a policy safeguarding its use, but says City Plan 2041 will review those areas, a reason to put such a site forward now. Our brownfield and yards page says what we look for.
3. The fringe outside the Park. Unallocated land beside the built-up area, weighed under policy S5 while delivery stays below 75%, against SA4's test and SA5 on the Park's setting.
4. Inside the National Park. The South Downs Local Plan applies there, not the City Plan. We will say plainly if homes are unlikely.
5. Through City Plan 2041. Larger sites the council may allocate. The assessment draws on sites put forward through calls for sites, though inclusion is no judgement on allocation.

Each route needs evidence first, from heritage in the conservation areas to contamination, transport and the relationship with the Park. We pay for all of it.

Below 75%, and the Next Edition

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026, and the test is refreshed each year. A move above 75% would end the automatic finding under policy S5, but a supply this short would still be evidence of need to weigh, and only 85% or more would take the buffer back to 5%.

The Next Land Assessment

The assessment is annual, and the latest, with a base date of 1 April 2025, came out in February 2026, so the next would normally cover the year to March 2026. A few large sites move the figure most: Toad's Hole Valley, the gas works site in the Marina and Black Rock area, and the Lewes Road schemes.

Sites, the Park and the City's Edge

For land inside the Park, Part One's text to policy SA5 says the Park Authority decides the applications, so a proposal there meets the South Downs Local Plan, not the city's supply position.

Reorganisation could redraw the city's edge. The county council's summary says the government proposed moving East Saltdean, Peacehaven and Telscombe into an expanded Brighton and Hove from 2028. In a Commons statement of 7 September 2026, East Sussex and its neighbouring unitaries were among the July decisions put under review, with reorganisation activity paused and May 2027 elections on existing boundaries. None of this changes who decides an application today.

Which Sites to Look at First

• Brownfield land and sites inside the city, now: S4 applies at any stage of the plan.
• Safeguarded employment land, before the review reaches it.
• Fringe land outside the Park, while unmet need stays treated as evidenced.