Travel inspirations: Brighton
Brighton is an interesting place with many parallels to inner city Melbourne: coastal based, diversity of people (Brighton Pride was on during our visit), lots of University students, independent cafes and stores.
Brighton is proud to be the UK's first Green party led city council. We had lunch with a former member of council to find out about the experience of renters in Brighton. Like Australian inner cities there are rental shortages and rental properties are expensive. Recycling is a challenge as recycle bins are only collected fortnightly. There is no comparable Tenants Union as in Australian cities and there is an active Residential Landlord Association which represents private landlords. However the council owns and manages nearly 12,300 homes in Brighton, Hove and Portslade - including 23 sheltered schemes - around 11 per cent of all housing in Brighton and Hove as well as offering a scheme helping private landlords find tenants for their properties.
Brighton rental properties are part of the Energy Performance Certificate program. All homes bought, sold or rented require an Energy Performance certificate which includes information on home energy use and emissions and a recommendation report with suggestions to reduce energy use and emissions. However in practise, the scheme can be problematic with implementation with a number of renters we spoke to still waiting for their recommendation report.
We also visited Brighton Peace and Environment Centre and had a great chat with Paolo the Community Learning Coordinator. BPEC is an educational charity which inspires action through learning about the world. It is equipped with an educational program within schools and Universities, a fantastic resource library and space for community groups. They provide the Brighton and Hove Green Pages and coordinate projects such as Climate connections, a two year project that tells the stories of people living both in Brighton and Hove and across the world who are active in combating climate change. When we visited the Climate Connections stories and photographs were displayed on the seafront, a great way of drawing visiting into sustainability issues.
Other interesting links
- Iydea, A great vegetarian cafe
- Eco Open houses in Brighton
- Brighton & Hove harvest
- Grow your neighbours, Brighton & Hove produce exchange amongst neighbours
- Arka, eco funerals
- Brighton permaculture
- Brighton energy coop
- Brighton & Hove food partnership
