A MOTION calling for the council to support a ban on the sale of new houses as second homes is set to be put to a vote this evening.

The motion, being put forward by Brighton and Hove Labour councillors Gill Williams and Nick Childs, calls for the council to support the implementation of a "principal residency policy" which would grant planning permission for open-market housing where there is a condition of restricting occupancy as a principal residence.

It also requests that the council's housing and tourism, equalities, communities and culture committees call for a report to outline the possible policy steps that could be considered to implement the policy and the impact they could have on the affordability and availability of housing in the next five years.

The aim is to reduce the rise of second home ownership in the city, which Labour claims is having a "severely detrimental effect on housing supply and affordability".

A Labour spokeswoman said that the motion would send "a clear message that, whilst we welcome developments that do make a contribution by offering affordable housing options, we must do all we can to curtail developments which are marked specifically at investors rather the needs of local people."

She said: "Our city is in a housing crisis. Families, workers and people young and old are being priced out of our city by the lack of affordable housing. We are in danger of losing whole classes in our local schools.

"Communities are being eroded through the negative effect of properties that are sold off to wealth investors without a thought for our communities who are suffering tremendously as a result of skyrocketing cost of homes.

"The lack of control on the second home/investment market is a major contributor to this. We can and must use the powers available to local authorities to fight this."

Brighton tenants' union Acorn have welcomed the motion, which comes after an ongoing campaign by the group to tackle the housing crisis in the city by tackling the issue of second home ownership.

A spokesman from Acorn said: "Second home ownership is damaging our communities, with families and local residents being priced out of the city whilst new developments are sold off as investments. It is essential that all of our councillors support this motion to ban second homes and fight the housing crisis in Brighton and Hove."

However, Cllr Mary Mears, the housing spokeswoman for the Conservative group, said that Labour has "not done its research" and claimed the policy caused house prices to rise when it was introduced in Cornwall in 2016.

She said: "If the Labour-Green Coalition on Housing decided to implement this policy in Brighton & Hove, it would inevitably have a similar negative impact and cause a rise in house prices here, putting housing further out of reach for people and hurting the city as it tries to recover from the pandemic.

"This is a distraction from the Labour-Green Housing Coalition’s own performance, where the Council currently has 284 empty council homes and a backlog of housing repairs of 8,800. The Council is contributing to housing supply and affordability problems by failing to let out hundreds of its empty council homes.

“The Council needs to get back to work and fix its own problems; reopen the Housing Department to residents and focus on clearing the repairs backlog and letting out empty homes to those on the waiting list; rather than trying to introduce debunked schemes which academics have proven have failed elsewhere.”

The local Green group has been approached for comment.

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