Brighton and Hove City Council is moving to tighten regulations on short-term holiday rentals, amid growing concern over their impact on the housing crisis and local infrastructure. The council’s cabinet has formally backed a series of measures that could see landlords operating through platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com subject to stricter rules and potentially new licensing requirements.
The decision follows a report revealing that as many as 6,000 homes in the city are being advertised as holiday lets, yet only a fraction, around 400, are registered as businesses. At a recent cabinet meeting, council members discussed introducing planning conditions that would prevent newly built or converted homes from being used as full-time holiday lets. The idea, still in the early stages, also includes proposals to create designated zones where short-term rentals would be either permitted or restricted.
Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council said, Bella Sankey, said: “It is important we work together with the sector to build a better picture of the local situation [and] lobby government for more powers to help manage it.”
Labour councillor Amanda Evans, who leads the council’s scrutiny committee, pointed out that many landlords were unaware they were operating outside the law.
She said: “There are a lot of people who are breaking current law and maybe are not even aware.
“They’re not registered as businesses. They’re not paying business rates or business taxes or making business waste disposal arrangements.
“But they’re not aware of that necessarily, and we don’t know where they are to enforce legislation.”
According to official government statistics, on 31 March 2024, there were 1.33 million households on local authority housing waiting lists in England, the highest level in a decade and a 3% increase from the previous year.
A recent report has also found that Brighton and Hove needs nearly 40,000 new homes by 2040 to meet demand, which is almost five times the city’s current annual building rate.
Brighton locals have called for a ban on second homes after they described house prices as “frankly insane”.
The council plans to use the City Plan, Brighton and Hove’s key strategic policy framework, to introduce measures such as restricting holiday lets in certain areas or preventing new homes from being converted for short-term rental purposes.
Members of the council’s cabinet agreed to gather more evidence before proposing specific regulations, including the possibility of designated zones for holiday letting activity.
A government bill aimed at licensing and regulating short-term holiday lets is expected to be debated in the House of Commons this July, potentially providing councils with new tools to address the issue.