Brighton & Hove

Hotel Solutions completed a study in March 2018 of the future potential for hotel development in Brighton & Hove, updating a study that we undertook in the city in 2006. The main purpose of the work was to inform the City Plan Part Two planning policies for hotel development. The study showed good potential for further hotel development in Brighton, based on the city’s strength as a leisure and conference destination. A shortage of good hotel sites was identified as a key barrier however. We recommended a focus therefore on broadening the parameters of some of the major regeneration schemes in the city to allow consideration of hotels as a possible use, alongside a proactive approach to securing hotel products and brands on these sites that will help to attract new business and strengthen Brighton’s appeal as a leisure and conference tourism destination. The study also looked at the need to retain the city’s guest house supply in a changing marketplace, with new hotels potentially opening and a rapid growth in the short-term letting of residential properties through Airbnb and other online booking platforms. We concluded that there remains a strong market for guest houses in Brighton & Hove and that the Council’s guest house retention policy should remain in place, albeit with greater flexibility to allow change of use in cases where guest houses are unable to find a buyer after a reasonable period of marketing for sale. The Brighton & Hove study also looked at the need to regulate the short-term letting of residential properties through the range of online booking platforms that have emerged in recent years, most notably Airbnb. While the study showed a clear need to do this, it concluded that the City Council currently has very limited powers to make a difference in this respect.