Dr. Jess Steele’s £85,000 Personal Investment to Address Hastings’ Housing Crisis

Dr. Jess Steele recounts that Hastings, a vibrant town in the 1980s where London bands would often stay after performing, is now among England’s most deprived areas. It faces such a severe housing shortage that the council was informed last year it risked bankruptcy. She leads a community organization that recently received £1.5 million from the council to develop 12 apartments in a disused publishing house. However, the group’s efforts to tackle the town’s housing crisis began in 2014, at Rock House, a dilapidated office block located next door. Jess personally contributed £85,000. Hastings is surrounded by the High Weald, an area of outstanding natural beauty, and is situated on the Sussex coast among cliffs. This geographical constraint means urban planners have limited access to the open land typically favored for large-scale housing developments. According to Jess, local residents began to fear being priced out of White Rock, a neighborhood situated behind the Hastings seafront. She states, “There was this feeling that gentrification was going to be a problem – and by gentrification I mean the replacement of existing people on lower incomes by people with higher incomes.” At that time, approximately 35% of households in Hastings were living in relative poverty, a figure significantly higher than the average for south-east England. Rock House, a nine-story office building, was half empty and rather shabby when Jess and her community group, now known as Hastings Commons, rented a small unit there in 2014 for £200 per month. Unexpectedly, they were offered the opportunity to purchase the entire building for £400,000, a heavily discounted price, which also presented a chance to assist a neglected town and its residents. Jess believed that by bringing buildings, such as Rock House, into community ownership, they would be able to “cap the rents forever” and provide local people with affordable places to live. Rents would be set at one-third of the median local income and would only increase with inflation. The community group lacked the funds to buy Rock House, but Jess knew of a social enterprise investor who had £235,000 available to convert an empty building into affordable flats and offices. She convinced them to undertake the project in Hastings. Jess recounted, “I was so naive at that stage and not very good at negotiating. I was too embarrassed to offer the letting agent half the asking price, as I had been advised, so I offered the £235,000 grant – he immediately said yes!” With all the grant money used for the building’s purchase, nothing remained to cover stamp duty, let alone to renovate its nine floors. Jess, who was coincidentally re-mortgaging her home, made the deal feasible by agreeing to invest £85,000 into the project. Work at Rock House commenced in October 2014, with assistance from volunteers and a local builder. Jess recalls, “We had a report saying it was going to cost £1.9m to renovate the whole building. So we threw it away and got on with turning the first two floors into workspaces for local businesses that we knew wanted to rent them.” The building was partially reopened a few months later in 2015, and a third floor was provided to an art school for a year at no charge. Jess commented, “They started bringing the building to life and, you know, being ambassadors for it. So more and more people were coming to see it and proposing ideas about how to use the empty space. It was almost like free marketing but they were also shaping the future of it.” The subsequent phase involved converting two floors into six flats, utilizing a loan from the founders of the Big Issue, which would then be rented at an affordable rate. Jess credits the builder, Chris Dodwell, for his skill and patience in working with the building as it was, given that the community group could not afford an architect. In March 2016, the first residential tenants moved in, and the group secured additional grants to complete the conversion of the remaining floors into various workspaces, commercial units, and common areas. The renovation was fully completed in 2019. Jess stated, “Housing is really important but people need more than just a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. They need space to meet, space to work, space for leisure, space for action.” She emphasized the importance of constructing homes with a neighborhood focus, rather than simply creating housing units. Sue Fellows, aged 69, is one of the beneficiaries. She moved to Hastings to be closer to her daughter but found it challenging to afford private renting after retiring from her work as a carer. The grandmother of ten has been a Hastings Commons tenant for five years and volunteers in their support group for young mothers. She shared, “It’s a really positive experience. It’s a good social life here and it was really important after Covid – when it all felt a bit horrible.” The housing crisis extends beyond Hastings, representing a nationwide problem. The government has committed to “delivering the biggest increase in affordable housebuilding in a generation.” Lisa Tye, a property lawyer who contributed to a report for the Radix Housing Commission on meeting building targets, believes that projects like those by Hastings Commons cannot entirely resolve the crisis but are part of the solution. She states that large housebuilding firms are better equipped to deliver numerous housing units, but community groups can make a difference in areas with limited available land, especially if there are enough of them. Tye added, “When you start to add it up, it can provide something that’s a bit different and is genuinely community-led.” The funding for installing affordable flats at the Observer Building was granted to Hastings Commons by the council in October. The building, with its terracotta-glazed facade a familiar sight to residents for 100 years, previously housed a printing company that employed hundreds of local people until its closure in the 1980s. The funding is designated for 12 affordable homes, 8 of which will be used by the council to house families currently in temporary accommodation. Jess described her initial tour of the building, noting its seven floors were infested with pigeons and had streams of rainwater running through them, calling it the “rotting heart” of White Rock. She explained that Hastings Commons took ownership of the building in 2019 and has already established workspaces, an events venue, a technology hub, and a Crossfit gym. The acquisition was financed using a mortgage on Rock House, which was then valued at £1.6 million. She remarked, “Like idiots, we decided to risk all of our good work to buy the derelict wreck next door!” Adding, “But that’s our mission, to bring difficult and derelict buildings back into community use.” BBC Radio 4 – The Affordable Housing Crisis The UK faces a serious shortage of affordable homes. The question arises whether the current system, where councils negotiate with developers to provide cheaper homes, is effective. Concerns include whether developers are permitted to evade their obligations to provide affordable homes, and if councils are too under-resourced and under-skilled to negotiate with these large companies. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.