Imagine a sweltering summer day in Brighton & Hove. The sun beats down on the bustling seafront, where tourists sip iced lattes under shady umbrellas. But venture into the city’s more deprived neighbourhoods like Whitehawk, Moulsecoomb, or the estates of Coldean and Bevendean, and the story changes.
Here, concrete jungles amplify the heat, turning streets into ovens with little escape from the relentless warmth. This isn’t just discomfort; it’s a stark example of environmental injustice, where vulnerable communities bear the brunt of climate change.
As we hit record temperatures in 2026, it’s time to look at how urban heat islands (UHIs) deepen inequality across the UK, and how BHESCo are committed to tackling UHIs in Brighton & Hove, using innovative clean energy solutions to build a cooler, fairer future for all.
What are these Urban Heat Islands (UHI)?
Urban heat island (UHI) effects happen when cities trap heat due to buildings, roads, and limited green space, making them up to 7°C warmer than rural surroundings at night. Densely built-up places absorb sun during the day and release it slowly at night, with less vegetation to cool the air. In Brighton & Hove, UHI hotspots are mapped in Hanover, central Hove, Seven Dials, and around train stations areas with more concrete and less shade.
Why are deprived areas hit harder?
A 2025 analysis by Carbon Brief, based on UK government data, found significant inequalities in exposure to heat.
England’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods were 15 times more likely to experience high heat hazards than the least diverse neighbourhoods. People living in the most deprived neighbourhoods were more than three times as likely to face high heat hazards.
There is also an important connection between climate justice and emissions. The analysis found that 13.4% of the English neighbourhoods with the lowest carbon footprints were among the 10% most exposed to heat hazards, compared with 7% of neighbourhoods with the highest carbon footprints.
In other words, some communities that contribute relatively little to climate change can nevertheless face some of its greatest impacts.
Poor-quality housing, limited access to green space, pollution and fewer resources for cooling can all make heat more difficult to cope with.
The Climate Change Committee’s 2025 adaptation report also warns that urban areas are likely to experience increasing heat. It projects that urban nighttime temperatures could increase relative to rural areas by around 0.01–0.05°C per decade, increasing the intensity of the urban heat island effect.
Zooming in: Brighton & Hove
Brighton & Hove might have a “weak” urban heat island effect compared to megacities like London, but don’t be fooled – local vulnerabilities are real and growing.
The city ranks as the 8th highest flood risk area in England, with over 30,000 homes potentially threatened by rising seas and heavy rain. In 2026, as the UK marked its hottest day on record, experts urged mandatory climate adaptation in urban planning to combat both heatwaves and floods.
The city’s most deprived wards carry this burden in different ways. In the centre of the city, dense housing and impermeable urban surfaces trap heat and worsen surface water flooding – classic urban heat island conditions. Further out, Coldean and Bevendean face a related but distinct challenge: older, poorly insulated housing set against the Downs, where homes overheat in summer and haemorrhage warmth in winter, leaving residents squeezed by high energy costs whatever the season.
Different geography, same underlying injustice; low-income households living in homes that were never built to cope with today’s climate, with the least financial room to fix it themselves.
The city’s climate risk study maps these vulnerabilities, revealing hotter, harder-to-heat pockets in exactly the areas where green space is scarcest, and incomes are lowest. Recent initiatives, like community rain gardens under The Living Coast project, aim to soak up floodwater and cool neighbourhoods, but inequities persist, and vulnerable residents across all of these areas often miss out on these benefits.
These issues aren’t abstract; they translate into real health crises. Extreme heat now kills more people annually than hurricanes and floods combined, with marginalised communities in poor urban housing at greatest risk. In Brighton & Hove, limited green access and ageing housing stock mean less natural cooling and less resilience, perpetuating a cycle of inequality whether the crisis is a heatwave or a winter cold snap.
BHESCo: Community Energy for Environmental Justice
Through our Solar Powered Communities: Just Transition Programme, we are bringing fully funded solar panels and battery storage to households in Coldean and Bevendean – communities where older housing and high energy costs can leave residents struggling with energy bills and uncomfortable homes. The programme is designed for households that find energy costs hardest to manage and is open to homeowners, private renters and social housing tenants.
Households pay nothing upfront. BHESCo funds the installation of solar panels and battery storage for your home. You then enter into a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with BHESCo and pay a fixed amount every month for the solar electricity generated by your system – at up to 25% less than your current supplier’s rate.
This is environmental justice in practice: a practical, low-risk way for households that might otherwise be excluded to benefit from the clean energy transition. We hope this model can eventually extend to Whitehawk, Moulsecoomb and other heat-vulnerable communities across the city.
Picture a street in Coldean where rooftop solar reduces household energy costs, battery storage provides greater energy resilience, and residents benefit from the clean energy being generated. That’s not a distant vision. It’s happening now.
As 2026’s heat records remind us, urban heat risks aren’t inevitable. In Brighton & Hove, tackling them means investing in the neighbourhoods carrying the greatest burden. BHESCo’s Just Transition Programme is one part of that story – showing that equitable, low-carbon living can be built street by street, starting now.
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