Horsham district's B&Bs and guest houses fell from 40 to 8 in ten years, a new council study finds. Short-term lets now make up 82% of places to stay.
Horsham district had 40 guest houses and B&Bs in 2016. It now has eight. That is one of the starkest findings in a new study of where visitors stay, published by Horsham District Council on 10 November (Horsham District Council).
The 70-page report replaces the council’s last assessment from 2017. It was commissioned jointly with Mid Sussex District Council in December 2025 and will feed into the Local Plan and decisions on planning applications (full report).
Fewer B&Bs and inns, more holiday lets
The study counted 136 professionally run places to stay in the district in January 2026. It counted 633 more listed on Airbnb, Vrbo and similar sites. Those short-term lets now make up 82% of all visitor accommodation in the district.
Comparing the district with the 2016 audit, the report found:
- guest houses and B&Bs down from 40 to 8, a fall of 80%
- inns with rooms down from 14 to 9
- hotels up from 15 to 17
- glamping sites up from 8 to 13
- caravan and camping sites down from 15 to 12
The total number of bed spaces barely moved, rising from 5,460 to 5,603. The report says the market is “restructuring rather than seeing major reductions in capacity”. Many former B&B owners, it suggests, now let rooms or cottages through Airbnb instead.
It also found that 65% of short-term let hosts in Horsham district run more than one property. The report says that probably means an agent is marketing homes on the owners’ behalf.
Day trips dominate
The study draws on 2024 figures from Destination Research. Tourism was worth £253.7m to the district that year, up 2%, and supported 4,527 jobs, about 8% of all employment.
But most of that came from day trips. Of 3.97 million visits, 3.76 million were day trips. Only 210,000 involved an overnight stay. The report calls that “a comparatively limited base given the District’s assets and location”. Of those staying trips, 44% were people sleeping at the homes of friends or family.
What the report recommends
The authors say growth will come from smaller, higher-value places to stay rather than big hotels. They point to:
- farm stays and vineyard accommodation
- breaks built around walking, cycling, food and wellbeing
- glamping and high-specification self-catering
- getting visitors to stay longer and come midweek or out of season
Interviewees told the authors that Horsham town centre lacks a high-quality hotel, and that funding and suitable sites are hard to find. The report also says Gatwick’s second runway could support “one or two” distinctive hotels in the north of the district, in or around Horsham, on top of the four hotels and about 1,250 rooms planned at the airport itself.
Accommodation businesses surveyed were firmly against a tourist tax. Of 12 who answered, 8 strongly opposed a visitor levy.
Cllr Jonathan Taylor, the council’s Cabinet Member for Enterprise and Property, said the report “provides an invaluable source of business intelligence” for accommodation providers, landowners and investors.
What it means for you
- If you run, or plan to run, a holiday let or B&B, the full report and a shorter business summary are free on the council’s visitor economy pages.
- A national registration scheme for short-term lets is expected in 2027, according to the report. It estimates the scheme could cut the number of lets by about 12%.
- Planning decisions will lean on it. The council says the study will inform the Local Plan and how it judges applications for new places to stay.
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