AN MP used his maiden speech in the House of Commons to complain that Londoners moving to Brighton and Hove are clogging up commuter trains and buying up precious property.

New Hove MP, Peter Kyle highlighted the city’s housing crisis during his speech on Wednesday.

Speaking in front of a packed house, the Labour MP praised the city’s universities and social life, adding: “All of this explains why our city has been voted the best place to live.

“We do however have a problem,” he joked. “The problem is with immigration: that's people flocking down from London, buying up property and clogging up our commuter trains.”

Speaking to The Argus yesterday, he said the quip was a response to the Conservative stance on immigration but added there was some grounding to it.

He said: “Forty percent of housing transactions in Brighton and Hove are from people in London. That is putting pressure on our housing stock and causing our prices to go up.

“We need an honest conversation about this.

“We need to balance it by making sure we have enough affordable housing coming on stream and making sure there are homes for people who already live here.

“I don’t want to deter people coming from outside – we just need to get the balance right.”

Phil Graves, who runs Graves Jenkins estate agents, said there was truth in the idea of Londoners bringing about a rise in prices.

He said: “Certainly the market is very popular with London commuters.

“You can’t stop people coming here.

“We want and need London buyers – London is a very important part of our market.”

He said he sympathised with first-time buyers, who are “often propped up by the bank of mum and dad”, adding: “That’s the way it is.”

The council’s City Plan makes a provision for affordable housing with the current Brighton Marina development a good example of it in action.

A total of 853 flats are to be built in the Marina, with work on phase one of the Outer Harbour due in the middle of next year.

The first two apartment blocks, comprising 195 flats, will see 20 affordable properties.

Mr Graves added: “We have been trying to solve this issue for some time.

“The people who are ‘clogging up’ commuter trains may well be the same people selling their houses to a London buyer.”

Mr Kyle himself moved from Bognor to Brighton in 1996 as a 26-year-old for university.

He added: “I don’t want to deter people coming here but we are getting to the point where someone won’t be able to afford a deposit without saving for 19 years.”

However, it is not just people buying homes who are affected.

In 2000, 3,700 families sought help from the council for housing – 50% more than in the late 1990s. In 2013, that figure stood at 16,000.

The same year, nearly 1,000 homes in Hove were bought by Londoners aged 25 to 44. Meanwhile research by Savills estate agent found Portslade saw the biggest rise in house prices across the south of Englandwith an average sale price of under £250,000.

We sent reporter Gareth Davies to find some Londoners living in Brighton. Where did we send him? London Road, of course

Yesterday the search for a former Londoner was difficult and we had to speak to lots of people before unearthing one.

“I ain’t from London, mate. Brighton born and bred,” was the cry from some.

The search continued at the Open Market, where Christian Cotton, owner of Smorl’s food bar, was born in Worthing, schooled in Shoreham and now lives in Brighton.

He did not have any customers from London at the time but he knows many that he could link us up with.

“I’ve got a lot of neighbours who are DFLs (Down From London), and it’s great for traders,” he said.

“They make the big bucks in the big city and then come here to spend their hard-earned cash.” The attraction of the south coast was clear for most to see, including Oliver Ovett, who has lived in the city all his life.

He said: “It’s the best place to live in the country by far. It’s easy to see why people want to come down here from London. It’s the sea and the people.

“And if they can afford to come down and buy a place then good luck to them.”

Simon Reid landed in Brighton from Glasgow, via Cambridge.

He visited a friend who was at university in the city five years ago, and knew it was the place he wanted to call home.

He now does just that, living in Ditchling Road and running Twisted Rainbow in the Open Market.

“It’s just awesome here,” he said.

“The sea, the sunshine and the happy people make such a difference. “I’ve lived in places where everyone is just so miserable, but when I come back here I feel like I’m at home.”

But not everyone was sucked in by Brighton and Hove’s charm.

One man, who did not want to be named, said Brighton was the worst city he’d lived in having travelled the world with work.

The man was originally from Tipton in the West Midlands and moved to the coast 10 years ago.

He said: “Mediocrity rules here, it’s the most mediocre place on earth.

“I just don’t think you have to be good at anything here – you’re just accepted.”

Alex Abrahams, who works at the Chilli Shop in the Open Market, was born in Brighton and moved to London in the early 1990s before heading back here.

He said: “I came home basically because I was broke and everything is so expensive there.

“Brighton has always been London-by-the-Sea since the late 90s.”

After toiling long and hard, we finally stumbled across a former Londoner in the form of Gary Elmer, owner of Objet D’art.

He said: “I came down here about 30 years ago and I also lived in Spain for 10 years during that time.

“I was working close-by in Steyning so wanted to stay in the area.

“This was around the time when house prices down here weren’t too bad and they were sky high in London.

“When I initially moved to Sussex I worked for Laurence Olivier doing cooking and driving and bits for him.”

Since then, he’s run businesses ranging from a jacket potato shop on West Street to a delicatessen in Beaconsfield Road before ending up dealing antiques in the Open Market.

He added: “I can see why people do it, they get more for their money in terms of houses, the sea is right there and the countryside the other side.

“It’s got a lot going for it and I call it my home now.”

History of city’s path into London by the sea

FROM the days of the first steam train, Brighton and Hove has grown into London by the sea.

Before the rail line the city was a small medieval town called Brighthelmstone.

Many of its present-day suburbs such as Hangleton and Patcham were once separate villages entirely and Hove was a different town.

The first boom in housing came in the mid 1700s when property sprouted outwards from the nebulous of old Brighton town.

By 1835 six steam companies were vying to build a railway between London and Brighton.

Two years later Parliament agreed to a direct line and, in the summer of 1841, it opened.

By this point, with the population at 45,000, housing had spread north of Preston Park and out to the point of joining up Hove and Brighton.

Some of today’s upmarket architecture – most notably the uniform Regency squares – resulted from this boom with wealthy Londoners buying properties by the sea.

The piers followed along with theatres, fancy restaurants and seaside attractions.

The 1900s saw the growth of suburbia with many farms and outlying villages absorbed into Brighton.

At the turn of the 20th century,165,227 people lived in Brighton, Hove and Portslade - twice as many since the coming of the railway.

Peacehaven was built after the First World War, with the city’s suburban semis created either side of the Second World War. The population increased to 239,447 by 1951 and 253,210 by 1969.

Brighton Marina opened in the mid-1970s and was followed by updated main roads such as the A23 bypass in the 1990s, bridging the north of the city.

The last census recorded the city’s population as 273,400 in 2011.