UPDATE — March 2026: The Council Are Trying To Silence Us. Here Is What We Now Know.

When I started this petition, I asked one simple question: why is Brighton & Hove City Council selling Bartholomew House — our city centre public building, the place hundreds of Brighton residents have walked through in their most desperate moments — for approximately £5 million?

Since then, things have moved fast. And they are not comfortable for this council.

I have now published three videos documenting what I have found. Please watch them, share them, and then come back here and sign if you have not already done so.

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🎬 VIDEO 1 — Half a Billion Pounds of Public Wealth Being Extracted
▶️ https://youtu.be/Y3UUvL1lAn4

Brighton & Hove City Council has just published its Annual Procurement Forward Plan. The numbers are staggering. Half a billion pounds of council spending — your council tax money — is planned to flow to the private sector. Within that, a new £60 million temporary accommodation contract is being lined up, following the scandal of the £19 million Base One contract where homeless people were being housed at a reported cost of £41 per night.

Bartholomew House is being actively marketed to private investors as an investment opportunity. We already know what happens when council buildings in Brighton are sold and converted — look at Priory House across the road, now called Green Diamond, converted into short-term lets charging up to £250 per night on Airbnb.

This is public wealth being extracted from a city where someone experiencing homelessness dies every other week.

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🎬 VIDEO 2 — The Council Are Trying to Block Me. I've Gone to the Ombudsman.
▶️ https://youtu.be/UP7Rf2dF_54

I attended a council committee to raise these concerns through formal public participation. I was blocked.

This is not the first time. Five mothers of children with autism had their deputation blocked. One of those mothers — after we had a private meeting with the leader of the council — was revenge-evicted the very next day for reporting mould to her landlord, Baron Homes. The council claimed the property was abandoned. That is not true. There were five of us present when she told officers she had temporarily left due to the condition of the property. She was evicted the next day.

I have now lodged a formal complaint with the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman regarding the council's conduct, its blocking of legitimate public participation, and its failure to follow proper process in the disposal of public assets.

I confronted the Labour committee chair directly about this. You can watch what happened.

A council that silences its own residents while selling off their public assets deserves scrutiny. That is what we are providing.

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🎬 VIDEO 3 — Who Really Owns the Lease on Bartholomew House?
▶️ https://youtu.be/FH8DkbH_YsY

This is the investigation I am most proud of, and the one the council will find hardest to answer.

Using publicly available Companies House data, I have traced the corporate structure behind the Freedom Works lease at Bartholomew House. Here is what the records show:

Brighton & Hove City Council → Freedom Works Ltd (operator) → RBFW Ltd (Person of Significant Control) → former controllers based in Dubai and Luxembourg

This is a multi-layered corporate structure connecting a Brighton public building lease to offshore-linked investors. The council used delegated urgency powers to approve this arrangement, bypassing the full scrutiny of the council chamber.

Every fact in this video is drawn from public records. Companies House does not lie. I am not alleging criminal conduct — I am asking the questions a council should have asked before signing.

Why were urgency powers used? Who approved this? Did any officer or member carry out due diligence on the full corporate chain? And why is a public building asset potentially locked into arrangements linked to offshore entities?

The people of Brighton deserve answers.

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WHERE WE ARE NOW

✅ Formal Ombudsman complaint submitted
✅ Three videos published and on the record
✅ Corporate structure fully documented from public records
✅ FOI requests in progress
✅ Green councillors briefed

The council is betting that you will get tired. That you will stop watching. That you will stop sharing. That this petition will stall.

Please prove them wrong today.

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THREE THINGS I AM ASKING YOU TO DO RIGHT NOW:

1. Sign this petition if you have not already.
Every signature forces this issue further into the public record and closer to a formal council debate.

2. Share all three videos — on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X, TikTok. Forward them to your councillor. Tag your local Green Party representative. Email your MP.

3. Leave a comment on each video. YouTube's algorithm rewards engagement. The more people comment, the wider this investigation travels. Ask one question: "Why were urgency powers used to bypass scrutiny on this lease?"

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For the person currently in temporary accommodation in this city. For the family on the housing waiting list. For every Brighton resident whose council tax is funding a system that is making this city poorer.

This building should house people. Not offshore investment vehicles.

Daniel Harris, Brighton & Hove Housing Coalition
🌐 housingcoalition.co.uk