Hove 47-person HMO wins two-year permission

The Hove 47-person HMO at a former junior school has won a temporary planning approval despite breaching the city’s local HMO concentration threshold. Brighton & Hove councillors backed the use of the substantial school building for shared accommodation, subject to a two-year limit and conditions controlling occupation, management and neighbours’ amenity.

The Planning Committee considered application BH2026/00749 on 7th October 2026 for the former Brighton Girls junior department at Radinden Manor Road. The use had already started before the retrospective application was made. The committee’s decision is therefore not approval of a new 47-home development: the proposal is a single large, sui generis house in multiple occupation with up to 47 individual residents.

The case is particularly relevant to operators considering temporary ‘meanwhile’ accommodation in redundant institutional buildings. Officers identified conflicts with policies safeguarding community facilities, restricting HMO concentrations and setting energy standards, but concluded that the strictly limited duration and management controls could justify permission on the particular facts.

Why the Hove 47-person HMO won support

The applicant, Lowe Management Limited, sought permission for a change of use from education, Use Class F1, to a 47-person sui generis HMO. The former school building is at 1 Radinden Manor Road, close to Old Shoreham Road. The school operator had consolidated its teaching elsewhere and the property had become surplus to its operational needs.

The proposal is presented as temporary occupation while the wider site is sold and longer-term plans are developed. Importantly, the application red line excludes the adjoining sports field, which remains available for educational use. This distinction limits the land involved in the change of use and matters when considering the claimed loss of community facilities.

The plans show 13 single-occupancy bedrooms on the ground floor, 17 on the first and 17 on the second. Individual bedrooms vary considerably in size, in part because existing classrooms have been repurposed. The building also contains sizeable shared kitchens, dining accommodation and a former hall for communal use.

The council’s officer report recommended permission with controls. Local reporting of the committee meeting records a vote of eight to one in favour. The committee resolution should not be confused with a final, issued decision notice; the operative two-year period runs from the permission’s date rather than being backdated automatically to the start of occupation.

HMO concentration policy was exceeded

An especially striking feature of the Hove 47-person HMO decision is the council’s treatment of policy CP21. The officer report identified 12 neighbouring residential units within the relevant 50-metre catchment, of which two were existing or permitted HMOs. That produces a concentration of 16.7%, exceeding the policy’s usual 10% ceiling.

The wider neighbourhood picture was very different. Within the relevant output areas and immediately adjoining areas, officers recorded 27 HMOs among 1,901 dwellings, approximately 1.4%. That sits well below the 20% test used by policy DM7. The two percentages concern different catchments and cannot sensibly be substituted for one another.

The proposal also did not convert an existing family dwelling into shared accommodation. It reused a large former institutional building and did not result in an HMO sandwich or a terrace of contiguous HMOs. These features informed officers’ view that a short, controlled period of occupation would not unbalance the wider residential community.

That is not a blanket exemption from HMO concentration policy. A normal dwelling conversion in the same street could produce a very different balance, particularly if it removed family housing or created a cluster of shared properties. The unusual building, use history, scale and temporary nature were central to the recommendation.

For landlords, the practical point is to examine both the mapped concentration calculation and the actual policy criteria. Planning Geek’s guide to lawful HMO status explains why existing occupation and an HMO licence must not be mistaken for proof that the planning use is lawful.

The educational-use objection did not disappear

Policy DM9 protects community facilities, including educational accommodation. Officers accepted that the former junior school building was no longer needed by its previous operator, but the evidence did not establish that it was unnecessary for every other community use or had been properly marketed for that purpose.

The application therefore did not fully comply with DM9. Officers nevertheless treated the two-year timescale, retained playing field and absence of any permanent redevelopment consent as significant limits on the loss of educational use. The permission was recommended on the understanding that the HMO would cease at the end of the authorised period.

A condition requires the building to revert to its lawful F1 education use at the end of the temporary permission or earlier if the HMO use ends permanently. That is a substantial safeguard on paper, though its implementation and enforcement will depend on what happens in practice.

Neither the planning application nor the committee decision grants the long-term redevelopment of the site. Any future permanent residential scheme, different use or extension would need separate planning scrutiny under the policies applying at the time.

Forty-seven beds need more than forty-seven rooms

The officer report records approximately 440 square metres of communal accommodation. This comprises a kitchen of around 47.5 square metres, a kitchen and dining area of approximately 140 square metres, and a large communal hall of about 253 square metres.

That is approximately 9.4 square metres of communal area per resident, well above the 4-square-metre-per-person starting point identified in the local HMO guidance. All the proposed single-occupancy bedrooms exceeded the national HMO licensing minimum, although planning considerations extend beyond room-size compliance.

Communal kitchens, bathrooms, private amenity areas and access were assessed with the scale of occupation in mind. Officers did not assume that an unusually large former school was unsuitable simply because it had not been designed for shared housing. Nor did they treat its physical size as a substitute for effective on-site management.

Planning permission and HMO licensing are distinct processes. The former assesses the land use and its planning consequences; the latter can impose detailed fire-safety, room, facility and management standards. Operators must address both regimes as well as any applicable building-regulations duties.

Conditions put management and neighbour amenity centre stage

The proposed conditions cap occupation at 47 residents using the premises as their sole or main home. They also require a head guardian, prospective occupier checks, an up-to-date resident register, unannounced monthly inspections, scheduled visits by community managers and a 24-hour maintenance service.

External communal amenity areas must not be used between 11pm and 7am, except for access, exit or emergencies. Officers recognised neighbours’ reports of noise, visitors, parking and other disturbance, but considered the proposed restrictions and the short permission capable of managing the impacts.

Secure, covered cycle parking for at least 47 bicycles must be submitted for approval within one month of permission, and the approved spaces installed within a further month. Waste and recycling arrangements are subject to a similarly tight approval and installation sequence.

Approximately four on-site car parking spaces remain, principally for operational use. Residents’ concerns about parking and pedestrian safety were recorded, yet officers concluded that the sustainable location and traffic characteristics did not justify refusal on highway grounds.

The report also noted a degree of conflict with policy DM44 because the proposed temporary conversion did not show the usual EPC and carbon-efficiency improvements. Officers considered extensive permanent fabric upgrades potentially disproportionate to a use limited to two years. That reasoning would not necessarily apply to permanent conversion.

Property guardianship is not a planning use class

Descriptions such as ‘guardianship’, ‘meanwhile living’ or ‘key-worker accommodation’ are not substitutes for identifying the actual planning use. Here the submitted proposal was assessed as a large, sui generis HMO, rather than as Class C4 shared housing.

The applicant indicated that accommodation could assist key workers or be cheaper than market rents. Officers afforded little weight to those claims because the intended occupants and rent levels were not secured by enforceable planning conditions.

This is important for owners of empty offices, schools or commercial buildings. A short-term occupation agreement or a different label for residents does not automatically remove the need for planning permission or establish that a former planning use continues unchanged.

The fact that retrospective permission was supported also does not make retrospective changes risk-free. An operator who starts an unauthorised use before permission is granted remains exposed to enforcement and may be required to cease the use if an application is refused.

What happens next and where to read the papers

The detailed officer recommendation and application plans are published with the 7th October Planning Committee agenda. The official report for BH2026/00749 sets out the proposed conditions, local policy conflicts, representations and officer assessment.

For wider local policy, see Brighton & Hove City Council’s HMO planning guidance, including its Article 4 controls and concentration policies. Planning Geek also explains how Article 4 Directions affect permitted development.

The planning lesson is more nuanced than an approval for a large HMO. The Hove 47-person HMO benefited from a vacant, unusually spacious former school, limited loss of education use, substantial shared facilities and a strictly temporary proposal. Applicants proposing permanent schemes should not assume that the same policy conflicts would be outweighed.

Planning Geek takeaway: a temporary institutional conversion can sometimes secure planning permission despite identifiable policy conflicts, but its planning case must address what the use actually is, who occupies it, the evidence of policy harm, and how enforceable conditions protect neighbours.