People living in sheltered housing in Brighton are concerned about other residents trading parking permits, a tenants representative has alleged.
Sloane Court representative Tony McCoy told a Brighton and Hove City Council housing panel how his neighbours were fighting a battle to put people off keeping permits by fixing them to A4 sheets of paper with their flat number.
Mr McCoy is concerned that some permits were being misused by contractors after being handed to them but then not returned to residents.
Council officers accepted that abuse of parking permits was a problem across the city centre.
Of the seven visitors parking spaces at the block in Park Street, Mr McCoy said that four or five were occupied by American Express workers with visitors permits each day.
He said: “We’re so sick of it. We saw them park up and followed them.”
Housing services operations manager Hilary Edgar said that the authority operated a “three strikes” policy when it came to monitoring abuse of visitors permits.
The council has since confirmed that it rents six parking bays in Sloane Court and Leach Court to American Express workers.
The council said: “Our customer services team will be contacting the person who raised these concerns with a view to gaining the evidence we would need to investigate whether our permit system is being used legitimately or not.
“The supply of parking bays in this car park currently exceeds the number of residents wishing to rent them.”
Priority is given to people living in the flats if they wish to rent spaces.
The council added: “Parking enforcement was introduced to this car park because of residents’ complaints that non-residents, including Amex staff, were parking in the then free and unrestricted car parking areas.
“Our parking bay licences for Amex are such that we would cancel them if demand for parking bays among Sloane Court / Leach Court residents were to increase to the extent that there was a shortage.”
has there been a reduction of the rent due to the rents from six parking bays in Sloane Court and Leach Court to American Express workers?
Housing charge over £250 a year for parking on housing land, the council charge £130 to park on highways. The high price difference is why residents are not taking the spaces. Interestingly housing offer the Amex workers a bargain price that they can park for a week for the price it would cost them a day on a parking meter.
Housing is pricing out residents to make more money from private indirviduals fat the hospital and Amex. Turning residential areas into carr parks. Do wonder if they need to apply for a change of use for these parking spaces they are renting to no residents?
I am a council tenant and the parking spaces are rented to tenants for £50 a month which is six hundred pounds a year out of town spaces are cheaper but this is a lot more than £250 a year you have quoted in your letter
I wish it was £250 a year I was paying £50 a month and I am a council tenant.for a parking space .and have done for nearly twenty years this is why there are so many empty spaces .they are unaffordable for many council tenants.
Well said, Tailor! I live nearby in sheltered accom and cannot afford to park where I live. Most of the car park is empty, because residents can’t afford the permits.
@Sarah Booker-Lewis
This article would be more interesting if it included the outcome of a FOI request to the council, asking how much they charge Amex staff for each of these permits.
From the Brighton & Hove wed site
Please also note:
council-owned garages and car parking spaces are for domestic parking use only
Tha same is happening in Somerset point, Somerset street a Porsche parks in a visitors bay then walks to Bradford street where he lives. He bought a green badge from a tenant