BART's House:
Stop the 250-Year Sell-Off

Why It Matters

Bartholomew House is a five-storey civic building at Bartholomew Square, Brighton BN1 1JE, occupying 51,107 square feet of publicly owned land in the heart of the city centre. For decades it has housed council and civic functions, providing a direct civic link between residents and local government. It is not a peripheral asset — it is at the core of Brighton's democratic geography.

In February 2026, the building was placed on the market by the council's agents. Offers of £5 million or above are being invited. The proposed disposal structure is a 250-year peppercorn lease — a form of disposal that effectively removes the asset from public control for two and a half centuries while generating minimal long-term income for the public purse. At current market rates, peppercorn terms generate between £1 and £100 per year in ground rent.

The building already has a sitting tenant on the upper floors: Freedom Works Ltd, on a commercial lease running from January 2024 to January 2039, paying £122,422 per year plus RPI-linked increases. The proposal to override this stable tenancy with a 250-year peppercorn disposal raises serious questions about the council's long-term asset management strategy and its obligations to residents in housing need.

Intelligence gathered by the coalition indicates that prospective buyers include investors with corporate structures linked to Dubai and Luxembourg — jurisdictions commonly associated with offshore asset holding. Brighton & Hove currently has 2,170 households in temporary accommodation. The coalition's position is that a publicly owned building of this size, in this location, should be assessed for social housing conversion before any disposal is progressed. At typical conversion densities, Bartholomew House could provide permanent housing for 40–60 Brighton families.