Council hopes to sell old school site for housing

Rother District Council (pictured) is seeking to make arrangements to sell off the former Bexhill High School site

A local authority is seeking to sell a former school site in the hope of securing an affordable housing development.

On 28 July, Rother District Council cabinet members agreed to begin arrangements to sell the Bexhill High School site, which it expects to generate between £1m to £2m if sold, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

Cabinet members expressed a preference to seek interest from registered social housing providers, while other proposed plans included open market sale and direct development by the council.

Joe Powell, the council's head of housing and strategic assets, said: "We think there will be quite a healthy interest."

Cabinet member for housing, councillor Ruairi McCourt, said: "My personal preference is the sale for affordable housing tenures.

"Direct delivery would, of course, be great, but there are issues with that, I understand, in terms of our viability and our capacity."

The cabinet heard the site had the capacity to build between 45 to 65 new homes.

Powell said: "It is well located, pretty flat, we've spent brownfield value land release funds on clearing it."

The council had previously been pursuing plans for a major redevelopment of the site, which had been expected to involve the construction of a new leisure centre as well as housing.

The project was then reduced in scale in the face of rising costs and the prospect of local government reorganisation, which is expected to see Rother District Council replaced with a new unitary authority within the next few years.