Brighton homeless to be housed in shipping containers

Shipping containers are already being used as homes by Forest YMCA in East London

Dozens of homeless people in Brighton are to be offered accommodation in converted shipping containers to help ease the city's acute housing need.

The 36 temporary studio homes, linked by walkways, are to be installed on land currently used as a scrap metal yard in car park in New England Road.

Brighton Housing Trust will allocate the containers to men and women with a local connection to the city.

The scheme is intended as a move on from supported housing.

Brighton and Hove City Council's planning committee heard that the containers were an "imaginative and appropriate" way to meet a very real need for affordable accommodation.

They will be in three and five storey blocks, with balconies and external stairs to the upper levels.

Planning permission has been granted for five years, with the contaminated land not considered suitable for permanent housing.

The committee was told the development would not affect longer-term plans to revitalise the London Road shopping area and create a new business quarter.

Committee chairman Councillor Christopher Hawtree said: "I hope this scheme will highlight what is being done to assist and encourage those who for one reason or another have been down on their luck and found themselves on the streets."