Meeting housing need requires cross-authority co-operation in Sussex

Martin Randall, head of planning and public protection at Brighton and Hove City Council, has called on neighbouring authorities, including the South Downs National Park Authority, to help the region meet housing need.  I think Martin is absolutely right.  The National Housing Federation has said that the number of new homes needed in East Sussex alone is set to increase from 354,600 in 2012 to 434,000 by 2033.

Yet the National Housing Federation has reported that Sussex Councils have reduced their house-building targets for the next 15 years by 43%. In Mid Sussex the target has been reduced from 17,100 to just 10,600.

Neighbouring authorities may not like it, but the Brighton and Hove economy is the powerhouse within the region and the well-being of neighbouring authorities, including Adur, Worthing, Crawley, Lewes, Mid Sussex and others, depend on a balance provision of housing and jobs across all authorities.

Eastbourne Borough Council deserves praise, having increased its target from 4,800 new homes to 5,022, and Worthing which has maintained its 4,000 target.

Brighton and Hove, under successive administrations, has had vision regarding the provision of housing, its economic success and that of the sub region. Far from Brighton and Hove trying to push housing need onto neighbouring areas, as claimed by the leader of Crawley Borough Council, the City Council is doing what it can but wider co-operation is necessary if we are to meet the housing needs of our children and others, and for the ongoing success of the sub regional economy.

 

The day Sally Bercow changed my life

Well, perhaps not changed my life, but she certainly made my day. Yesterday I ran a workshop on Twitter at BHT Sussex for a number of members of staff. We looked at who were effective tweeters, what made someone interesting, and why some people had greater authority on Twitter than others.

We looked at an individual’s reputation, and the relevance of one’s position in an organisation, how long a person had been in role, their knowledge base, how interesting their opinions were, and their personal conduct. We analysed how influential different individuals in BHT were on Twitter. I, for example, have the advantage of being the CEO and the credibility that brings, whether or not I personally merit it. Having worked for BHT for 27 years also brings some credibility, regardless of whether I have learned anything useful in that time or have anything interesting to say.

Towards the end of this very worthy discussion, I needed to illustrate something about Twitter and this blog. I then noticed that in the previous hour I had had twice as many hits on the blog than I would normally have in a week! Was it that I had said something particularly interesting, profound or controversial? Nothing like that. Earlier in the day I had posted my reaction to the speech by David Cameron in which he proposed that those under 25 should not be entitled to housing benefit.

It was a fairly straightforward post but the Twitter link to that post had been retweeted by one of the great Tweeters of our time, the incomparable @SallyBercow. Her simple, and generous tweet read “Good blog on the disgraceful Cameron housing benefit proposal >> RT @AndyWinterBHT: http://wp.me/pDTWu-iA“. This recommendation resulted in many dozen retweets and a huge volume of traffic to the blog.

The moral of the story is that it doesn’t really matter how influential a small time tweeter and blogger like me tries to be, all it takes is one recommendation from the likes of Sally Bercow to changed your life or, rather, make your day!