Brighton creative businesses mark plea as tower block faces closure
They want to be rehoused after their building was found to have serious fire concerns
Creative business owners based in New England House are calling on the council’s cabinet to find them a suitable alternative building as they face being turfed out by September.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet is being asked to approve moves to take “vacant possession” of New England House by Tuesday 30 September.
The council may have to spend up to £26 million to ensure that the building complies with fire safety standards.
The council closed the eight-storey commercial building in New England Street, Brighton, for emergency fire safety control work last November.
A deputation to the cabinet meeting next Thursday (20 March), supported by 11 business owners at New England House, asks for a more generous notice period to minimise costs and disruption.
The artists and makers want the council to provide a new site to keep the creative community prospering.
They said that New England House (NEH) has organised Open Studios for more than 20 years, with courses and projects for the Brighton Festival.
An artist, Rea Stavropoulos, is due to speak for the group, described as painters, photographers, performers and more on a series of points including “our impact on the Brighton community as a whole and the future of the city and what Brighton will lose through dismantling the creative community of New England House”.
She is also due to touch on “what we provide to make Brighton the attractive, inclusive, generous, individualistic, tolerant, creative, exciting city that we all want it to be and which attracts people who want to make it their home and visitors from all over the world”.
According to a report going before the cabinet, the building had been due to have a major refurbishment for several years.
Issues listed in the report include
• Inadequate fire protection of the floor slabs
• Extensively compromised compartmentation throughout the building, including the façade, which is “beyond its useful lifespan”
• No fire protection of external staircases
• Insufficient fire detection and firefighting provisions given the current state of building
• No provision for the evacuation of disabled people
• An incoming electrical supply beyond its useful lifespan which is a potential fire risk
• Fire prevention measures in place including 24-hour fire wardens, removing liquid petroleum gas and banning storing and charging of e-bikes and e-scooters
Keeping tenants in place would involve moving people out of entire floors at a time and relocating them around the building. Work is expected to take years and involve noise, vibration and limited access.
In the report, the council accepts that moving will be “challenging” for some tenants.
The report said: “There is a lack of affordable light industrial workspace in the city, especially in the central area, and the tenants will be competing for the limited space available.
“Not all tenants of New England House are expected to be able to find alternative accommodation in the centre of Brighton.
“For some tenants, being located in the London Road, city centre area and close to Brighton Station is considered by them to be helpful to their businesses and for many tenants the co-location of creative, cultural and digital businesses in New England House is important to the success of their business.
“Space at New England House is let at comparatively lower rents than many other buildings in the city and it is recognised that there is a risk that many tenants will need to pay more for workspace elsewhere.”
The council is trying to find alternative accommodation. This includes council-owned properties that are not in office, workshop or light industrial use such as schools.
An internal audit into the decision-making up to the temporary closure in November is under way and will go before a future Audit, Standards and General Purposes Committee meeting.
The cabinet is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 2pm next Thursday (20 March). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.