BHCC - Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce

By Dany Louise

An excellently organised, livelier and technically clever format for the annual State of the City debate provided an engaged, informed audience with an interactive whiz through the key challenges for Brighton & Hove. 

Invited to kick off proceedings, Cllr Bill Randall, new Leader of the Green administration, gave an overview of the challenges as he sees them, and how he hopes to begin to address them. His agenda has three key strands – tourism, green issues and tackling inequality – and he gave a brief but strong indication of how his administration intends to proceed.  Of most substance was his announcement of a reasonably significant fund – in the hundreds of thousands – ring-fenced to tackle issues of poverty and deprivation. 

He was respectfully received, but it would have been useful to hear more detail. Perhaps it is still too close to the election for detail to have been properly considered yet, let alone be made public.  But there was a sense – borne out by the Twitter traffic – that there were a good number of Green party supporters in the audience, who liked what they heard.

State of the City attracted a near-capacity audience drawn largely from the business community of Brighton & Hove, along with representatives from the education sector. Questions to the broad-ranging panel concentrated on the business environment and infrastructure, the problems of economic growth and white collar job creation, and a crucial issue, well highlighted by panellist Oliver Asha of Acumen Business Law, that wages in the City are not aligned to the cost of living here. This is an issue that encompasses the high cost of rent and housing (not discussed) and is likely to become critically important for the demographics of the City in the next few years. 

There appeared to be consensus that economic growth means attracting large employers to the City, and that in order to do so it would be necessary to develop more employment land, a position championed by Simon Fanshawe, Chair of the Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership. Interestingly, the online poll on this issue taking place simultaneously showed that 66% of those voting did not want empty sites developed.  This was the most graphic reminder of the realities behind the talk – there are almost always positives and negatives to every decision and most issues are not as black and white as they might at first appear. Geoff Raw from Brighton & Hove City Council spelt it out quite clearly: even if it was decided to develop odd pockets of land, it couldn’t be done without private sector finance, and no developer would take it on without feeling confident they would gain £22-£25 a square foot from it. This level of rent is a commercial average, but relatively expensive for the small and micro-businesses that make up 86% of the City’s business profile.  But without the office stock, the fear is that big companies will not relocate to the City.

The 90 minutes of discussion whizzed by, and it was clear that the audience had much more to say about parking charges, bus routes, road works, and constant disruptions to train services than the time allowed. But it was good news to hear that the Council and Magpie Recycling are piloting a non-meat food waste collection service from people’s homes, and has plans to start a food waste collection service for businesses – email brighton@paper-round.co.uk for more information and to sign up.

Energetically chaired by Roger French of the Brighton & Hove Bus Company, with online polling and constant live Tweeting, this new format for State of the City worked well, adding a welcome extra dimension. Well done to everyone involved; events like this are an important mechanism for democratic and communal engagement in the city.

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www.danylouise.wordpress.com

Dany Louise is a visual arts specialist and writer with twenty years experience in education, management and strategic arts roles. She has worked with many organisations, large and small, including Arts Council England. A freelancer, she focuses on cultural policy development, CPD training and arts writing. She is also researching a PhD on Biennials of Art.

Photo (c) The Argus