The council has revealed a plan to bring in “Brighton Summer Time” (BST) 12 months of the year to help save energy and relieve household bills as the cost of living crisis continues.
Under the scheme, the city of Brighton and Hove would not move the clocks back in October 2023, giving it an extra hour of daylight and an entirely different time zone to the rest of the UK.
Green councillor Saffron Lentil-Rice (they/them) said: “It’s going to be summer all year round in Brighton!
“This will save on household bills and also give us an extra hour of evening daylight all year round so we can enjoy outdoor activities such as tai-chi and ethical alpaca racing even in the winter!”
Responding to criticisms that children would be going to school in the dark in winter, Councillor Lentil-Rice said that special weaving classes would be introduced to all schools at the start of the new academic year with the aim of every child having the opportunity to fashion their own hi-vis safety garments from sustainable phosphorescent seaweed that can be gathered on the beach.
They also revealed that the council was in talks with Infinity Foods to develop a special breakfast cereal that would essentially mean that children would glow in the dark “just like in the Ready Brek ads”.
The plans were welcomed by Labour’s Quentin Prole, who said: “Time is largely a false capitalist construct seeking to oppress the working classes.
“I welcome any measures that will shorten the working day for hard-working families and individuals operating as independent economic units. And everyone else.”
Conservative councillor Iona Bentley said that such a plan would drag Brighton “back to the dark ages” while acknowledging this was no bad thing.
She said: “They haven’t thought it through. My residents say it’s pie in the sky, moon on a stick, bird-brained, numbskull thinking and what about all the cycle lanes and students and hippies. Bring back the birch, I say.”
Local druid Jeff Woad said they were “in the dark” regarding the plans but had concerns that a permanent change could play havoc with solstice celebrations.
Responding to commuter concerns that operating a train service between two different time zones could prove confusing and disrupt the timetables, Southern Railway spokesperson Bob Buggins said laughing: “Timetable? Where’ve you been? We haven’t bothered with a timetable for years.”
Bravo. More time to harvest spaghetti.
This is one of the best April Fools jokes I have seen. Made my Saturday.
Scraping the barrel for jokes:
Don’t give the Greens ideas….
Yet another unworkaable crackpot idea from the Disaster Party, whose members have clearly got a part of their brains missing. They come thick and fast these days. Still, it is so out of touch with realty that voters will hopefully come to their senses and kick them out once and for all, before they continue to ruin this once beautiful city with their bizarre plans.
Did you hear a loud woosh when you were reading this?
Ha ha ha!
Well there’s a moaning minnie caught out by an April fool. Haha
Well said Hendrik. I don’t care what others say about you, as far as I am concerned your complete absence of a sense of humour is just fine!
Keep up the good work.
It’s a joke!!!
Nice one…..had me going for a moment! 🤣
I thought that I was the subject of an April fool’s joke this morning when my wife and I popped down to Brighton Museum to view the Roger Bamber exhibition.
On producing our proof of residence we told that free entry for residents had been abolished and it now cost £7.75 to gain entry to a small provincial museum. At first I thought “ha ha good one 1st April” but no it was true.
Sometimes I wonder, as a non-cyclist, exactly what I’m getting for my council tax…
The council don’t own Brighton museum anymore, they are an independent charity.
Joey – You’re right – the trust took over the running of most of our museums in 2020 – I notice that in its accounts to 31-03-2002 it showed a loss of £1, 363002 despite receiving £1,362,000 from 1 government contract(s) and £2,108,628 from 6 government grant(s) – Do we have another I360 on our hands?
It also lists one employee with a salary of £100K and two with salaries of £60 -70K – no wonder we have to pay through the nose to enter what was once a free community asset…
I also presume that this is the same trust that is going to take three years to refurbish the toilet block in the Pavilion grounds – about the same time it took our forbearers to build the London to Brighton Railway…
They’re right – NEVER NORMAL BRIGHTON.
They have 3 councillors on the trustee board, being Shanks (G), Bell (C) and Robins (L), but 3 out of 16 obviously don’t have any clout, even if they had the inclination to buck the other 13.
This is a really shifty ‘innovation’, which has not been consulted on or publicised. I for one don’t mind paying for a good exhibition (not that there have been many of those that you’d want to pay for), but to pay £7.75 as a resident just to pop in for a little browse around, is not on. I expect as well, the fee has been hiked for inflation, because that’s a very odd amount.
To be clear, I personally wouldn’t mind paying for the exhibition (but have now ordered the book of the exhibition to avoid paying this grasping council/trustee board) but object very strongly to paying it just for a wander round the museum, which I have seen countless times for free and it is not worth very much at all. As you say, it is a samll provincial museum, and it doesn’t have much going for it.
Whenever I have been to the museum in recent years, mainly to see the exhibitions, i have noticed how empty the place is. Surely the last thing they should be doing is to charge so much for what is virtually a very small museum, especially for local residents.. It won’t be long before we shall see closing down notices, with the usual blame put on the government, instead of appalling lack of business sense on the part of the trustees.
And soon there will be very little in Brighton and Hove to attract visitors.
Interestingly, this new pricing arrangement, which has now engaged the attention of the Argus, doesn’t seem to be what was envisaged when the RPM Trust plan was presented to and approved by Policy & Resources Committee in 2019.
According to the minutes of the P&R Committee of 5 December 2019, the transfer of the Royal Pavilion and Museums to the RPM Trust was approved without discussion, which had also been the case at the P&R Committee meeting of 10 October 2019. There had been previous consideration at the June 2019 meeting.
The decision at the 5 December 2019 meeting was based on a report by the then Executive Director Economy, Environment & Culture, which contained the following wording at Para 7.3.4 (pages 381-382 of the Reports Pack).
“No changes to concessionary pricing are proposed as part of this transfer to Trust, and Fees and charges proposals include a section on Equalities which considers the balance between income generation and access. A charity group rate is offered. Resident adults are offered half price admission at Preston Manor and the Royal Pavilion and free admission at Brighton Museum. All resident children enjoy free admission at all sites. Brighton and Hove schools don’t pay admission. All students of the City’s universities or higher education colleges are eligible for admission at Resident rate regardless of whether their residence is within the City. The Royal Pavilion has an Annual free day and Brighton Museum hosts monthly free community days…”
I don’t know what else might or might not have happened after December 2019, but it was clearly envisaged that residents would continue to have free access to Brighton Museum, so the transfer seems to have been approved by councillors on an incorrect premise.
They kept that quiet!
Leaving special exhibitions aside, it’s not worth £7.75 for what’s in there. Maybe they should sell off many of the paintings they have in their collection that they never show.
They them about right for our councils not allowed to use more appropriate language 🤣🤣🤣🥲
I would personally think this would be a great idea because I don’t understand why we have to keep changing clocks when there isn’t really any need to do so..
Let’s face facts. In winter sometimes it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, it will always be dark and miserable…
If this was bought in as a thing I would support it.
I’m still feeding my Lirpa Loof….
Some of the comments are nearly as hilarious as the article – please give Robert Street a regular column
I actually did not twig until ‘tai chi and ethic…’. But i am tired after a busy day… a very good April Fool!
Ha!
Justin Time, a clock setter, objected strongly to this news stating that there had been no consultation with him or his Union, and that he faced redundancy and was quite alarmed when he found out.
A council spokes person said, ‘We put out a survey next week and a consultation the month after and requested people responded by last month. The results were known last year with the majority of residents in favour.
I am not surprised by bst introduction even if it is an April Fools spoof.The mess created in the town centre by ludicrous double cycle lane and the lunacy trying to turn right when coming into town on Lewes road to go to Btn station or the North Laines which creates constant traffic jams and therefore increased pollution as well as the Brighton Uni Canyon with added traffic lights which causes jams stretching back to Stanmer park coming into Brighton via the “Vague”roundabout causing even more pollution.The ridiculous cycle lanes on the Old Shoreham Road which rarely sees a cyclist all produced by city planners who are either mentally challenged or on some sort of herbal mind altering “Medication”. We all know that Brighton is ? or was? a great place to live in due to its diversity but the recent changes mentioned above makes one wonder if the lunatics have taken over the running of the city.
Have just had a look at the Brighton Museum website and they quote the entrance charge for adult residents at £6.75, and for non-residents it is £9.00. So it won’t be long for yet another local attraction bites the dust.
On the other hand, they say entry to Hove Museum is free!
But for how long, I wonder.
The staff at both museums are very friendly and helpful. I would hate to learn of them losing their jobs, thanks to the poor organisation at the top.
They’ll be charging just to enter the library next.
I haven’t been in Brighton Museum for quite a while but, as you said, it wasn’t exactly awash with people. So, if residents didn’t go in there that much when it was free, they’re far less likely to go now.
There used to be a nice little cafe there, but it was handed over to a commercial outfit involving Oliver Peyton (as was the one in the Pavilion I think) and then they handed back the contract because they couldn’t make enough money. Do I assume there hasn’t been a cafe since then?
They got rid of that very pleasant cafe on the first floor, overlooking the main room. Since this was very popular and very well run, that was surprising. A few years ago, for a short while they had a cafe area in the main entrance, but that did not last long. Now there is no cafe there. Hove Museum also had a cafe – an excellent one, but that disappeared.
And no doubt they will charge to go into the Pavilion Gardens, if they ever get around to replacing the toilets.