Short description:

Watkin Jones wants to build a 12-storey, 336-room co-living block beside Brighton Greenway. No family homes. No affordable housing on site. Serious impacts on light, wildlife, wind and one of London Road’s few green spaces.

Signing this petition helps, but formal objections on the planning portal matter even more.

Main petition:

Brighton Greenway is one of the few green, car-free corridors in the London Road area. People walk it, cycle it, use it as a cut-through and rely on it as a small but vital bit of breathing space in a dense part of the city.

Now Watkin Jones wants to build a 12-storey, 336-room co-living block directly beside it.

We support development on this site, but not this scheme.

This is not 336 normal flats. It is 336 single-occupancy co-living rooms, with no family homes, no two or

three-bedroom homes and no affordable housing on site.

The council’s own previous capacity work identified this site for around 20 to 32 homes. This proposal is for 336 rooms. That is a completely different scale.

The developer’s own documents raise serious concerns:

• 336 single-occupancy co-living rooms
• no family homes
• no affordable housing on site
• many rooms below the council’s own expected co-living space guidance
• serious daylight impacts on neighbouring homes
• a 12-storey wall beside Brighton Greenway
• no proper assessment of the total impact on the Greenway’s light, openness, wildlife, wind conditions or future character
• The Greenway does not need to be closed to be harmed. It can be darkened, enclosed and turned into somewhere else.

Brighton needs genuine homes: affordable homes, family homes and places where people can build lives. It does not need 336 tiny rooms beside a green corridor, marketed as the answer to the housing crisis.

We are calling on Brighton & Hove City Council to refuse application BH2026/01047 unless the scheme is radically reduced in height, massing and intensity, properly protects Brighton Greenway and delivers real homes rather than hotel-style co-living rooms.

Please sign this petition to help save Brighton Greenway.

And if you live locally or use the Greenway, please also submit a formal objection on the Brighton & Hove Planning Register. Signing helps show support. Formal objections create planning pressure.

Petition ask:

To Brighton & Hove City Council: refuse the current 12-storey, 336-room co-living scheme at 49 and 51 New England Street, or require a major redesign that protects Brighton Greenway, reduces height and massing and delivers real homes for Brighton.

Signing helps. Objecting matters even more.

Planning application reference: BH2026/01047
Site: 49–51 New England Street

Comment here:
https://publicaccess.brighton-hove.gov.uk/online-applications/search.do?action=simple&searchType=Application

Search BH2026/01047, then select Comment on this application.

You will need to register for the Planning Register, even if you already have a council MyAccount. Please write in your own words and include the word object.

You can follow our progress on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savebrightongreenway/