Controversial Technology Company Fighting To Keep Warehouse Extension In Brighton

A controversial technology company has lodged an appeal after it was refused planning permission to keep a temporary warehouse at its Brighton premises.

The company, L3 Harris, wants to retain the large shed-like building at Emblem House, in Home Farm Road, Moulsecoomb.

But Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee unanimously refused to extend the temporary permission at a meeting in June.

The company, a leading defence contractor, was originally granted its temporary planning permission for five years in 2018. The permission expired in September 2023 and the structure is still in place.

More than 600 objections were sent to the council, with most referring to “bomb racks” and “bomb release mechanisms”. A petition was also submitted, with 130 signatures.

The two Brighton MPs at the time and several councillors submitted objections while one councillor sent a letter of support.

A report to the Planning Committee recommended retaining the building but members voted unanimously against the proposal because of the effect on community cohesion.

Unlike a number of other councils, Brighton and Hove City Council anonymises and redacts letters of support and objection so it was impossible to tell whether the representations were local or from national or international campaigners.

The Planning Committee said:

“The benefit of retaining the extension on a permanent basis is outweighed by its impact on community cohesion and the need to safeguard the public interest in terms of fostering good relations between persons who share protected characteristics and persons who do not share them.

“Retaining the extension would have a disproportionately negative impact on the requirement to achieve the council’s equality objectives as a result of increasing risks of discrimination, harassment and victimisation to communities, particularly minority ethnic and religious groups, where risk to the safety of persons who share protected characteristics feature, contrary to section 149 (1) of the Equality Act 2010.”

A protest took place outside Hove Town Hall when the Planning Committee met on Wednesday 5 June after other earlier protests in the months leading up to the decision.

The application had been due to go before the committee in March but was delayed after the council decided to seek specialist legal advice.

L3 Harris said, in its appeal application, that the objections focused mainly on the company’s weapons-related products and that this was not a planning issue. Weapons and related products were regulated in other ways.

The company said:

“The development does not cause any harm to the appearance of the main building or the wider location and that removal of the extension would adversely impact on the business requirements of the appellant, with associated risk to local employment.

“If the extension were to be removed, this would cause environmental harms through the loss of the embodied carbon in the existing structure and the potential for materials to enter into the waste stream as a result of the removal.”

The company also said that the report to councillors mentioned the permanent planning permission granted to a larger proposed building in 2016.

As such, the principle of a smaller industrial building being retained in the same place on an industrial estate was acceptable under planning law and in keeping with the area.

L3 Harris’s neighbour and landlord, Paxton Access, has said that it planned to give notice to the company to vacate the premises when its lease expired in 2027.