Candidates in the local elections in Brighton and Hove were asked how they would promote active travel, cut pollution and congestion and improve public transport at a travel-themed hustings.
The event was organised by a coalition of transport and travel groups and chaired by energy and sustainability engineer Abigail Dombey. Representatives of four parties took pre-submitted questions before hearing from the floor at the Brighthelm Centre on Wednesday (5 April).
The panel consisted of Conservative candidate Tim Hodges, Green candidate Hannah Allbrooke, Labour candidate Birgit Miller and Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Chandler.
They were asked if they agreed that increased walking, cycling and wheeling (such as wheelchairs and scooters) would improve the health of residents, workers, visitors and tourists.
Mr Hodges, who is standing in Hangleton and Knoll ward, said that Brighton and Hove had about 600 miles of pavement, much of it covered with weeds after the council stopped spraying the streets with weed killer containing glyphosate.
He said: “It meant elderly people and dog walkers are reluctant to use the pavements, which has reduced walking, as we see in many areas.
“The Conservatives are campaigning on the pavements being kept free of weeds – and we have to continue that into the future. Many residents are taking it upon themselves to weed the pavements and for council tax payers to be doing that is not on or fair.”
Ms Allbrooke, who is standing in Brunswick and Adelaide ward, said that cars parked on pavements were a more significant challenge preventing people from walking safely.
She said: “Of course, travel and transport, walking, wheeling and health are intrinsically linked together – and that’s how we see active travel.
“Some of the improvements we have started in the last year have walking and wheeling at their heart. Just look at the Western Road improvement plan, which has just started, which is a pedestrian project. We need more improvements like that.”
Ms Miller, who is standing in Goldsmid ward, said that increasing active travel would improve health by helping people maintain a healthy weight and reduce heart disease, strokes and dementia.
She said: “Exercise reduces stress and anxiety levels – and active travellers breathe better quality air because the air inside cars is two to three times worse than the air outside.
“More active travellers means fewer cars, fewer road traffic accidents and less pollution. What’s not to like about reducing car use.”
Mr Chandler, who is also standing in Goldsmid ward, said that the pavements and roads were in a “shocking state of disrepair”.
He said: “There are other cities we know that do it better. There is a better way of doing things but we agree that keeping people active and travelling actively is a very good thing to encourage.”
Candidates were asked how they planned to support travel for young people to and from their education by members of Brighton and Hove Youth Council.
Ms Miller said that Labour’s manifesto said that the party wanted all under 19s in education to have access to free bus travel and was seeking funding.
She said: “We feel it is important that every child should be able to go to the school of their parent’s choice, not based on where they can afford to travel.”
Mr Chandler said that the Liberal Democrats had a similar policy.
Ms Allbrooke said that the council needed to build safe active travel routes around schools and she was looking forward to introducing the Balfour Road school streets project.
She said: “I’m really proud we have introduced free bus services and plan some improvements. The youth council has been campaigning on active transport and I hope we can continue to have conversations on making transport better for young people.”
Mr Hodges said that free travel for under-19s on buses and trains was something that he supported personally.
He said: “I would like to see a subsidised bike scheme, certainly not 15p a minute, but some way we can utilise the facilities we have in Brighton and Hove to allow people to cycle to school or college at a much-reduced rate.”
The candidates were asked which places their party could take inspiration from for traffic and transport policies.
Mr Chandler said that he had recently cycled in Paris and was amazed by the cycle paths. He said: “It’s incredible. It’s a classic city but, when they redesigned the city, they made all the boulevards straight.
“The only thing wrong with it from the cyclist’s point of view are cobblestones but, apart from that, Paris is great.”
Ms Miller said that Copenhagen and Amsterdam, which had good active travel, were the places that she wanted to learn from.
She said: “If it has been tried somewhere else and has been proven to work, I’m going to be in favour if it’s a good idea. I don’t see that we have to reinvent the wheel.”
Ms Allbrooke said that there was already a lot of learning from other cities, including the introduction of cycle hangars and projects from London boroughs, including low-traffic neighbourhoods and school streets.
She said: “Lambeth’s kerbside strategy they released recently is really interesting and inspiring. London councils have more powers than those outside London but there is some really inspirational stuff being done in this country we need to follow.”
Mr Hodges favoured San Francisco for its tram system. He said: “If we could just reinstate this in Brighton and Hove, we could all ride around on trams, jumping on, jumping off them.
“We could have an electric tram along the seafront. San Francisco has the same sort of structure as Brighton and Hove with many hills and it’s on the coast.”
The hustings were organised by a number of groups including Bricycles, Sustrans (England South), Brighton and Hove Friends of the Earth, Cycling UK Brighton and Hove, Living Streets Brighton and Hove, Brighton Active Travel and a range of residents.
A total of 222 candidates are contesting 54 seats on Brighton and Hove City Council in 23 wards – up from 21 wards after a boundary review.
Polling day is on Thursday 4 May when people voting in person will be required to have photo identification for the first time.
Anyone who is not on the electoral roll has until Monday 17 April to register.
‘The hustings were organised by Bricycles and Systrans’. So, now conflict of interest there!
Good for them, and for Living Streets and Brighton Active Travel and Cycling UK for organising a meeting so politicians could be grilled by anyone about all aspects of transport & travel in Brighton & Hove. We need more opportunities like this but they take too much organising.
Triggered! So, anyone who doesn’t agree with the small minority of nutters at Bricycles, Sustrans etc has to be publicly savaged! Stalinism at work. Meanwhile, in the real world….
You’re not using “triggered” correctly, You’re the one who is triggered
And so it continues….
Perhaps you need to write a strongly worded letter and encourage Volkswagen, Ford, Shell and BP to come down and organise their own hustings in order protect your precious automotive freedoms.
They, and Mike Beasley, could have posed their own questions at the Transport & Travel Hustings. It was a public meeting. It would’ve been very interesting if they had.
I was tempted to attend, but with an echo-chamber of all the pro-bike anti-motorist obsessed activists groups in the city, I thought it would just stress me out and be of no value to me.
Was there anyone present representing families, the disabled, commuters, tradesmen, local businesses, or any of those for whom cycling is not a practical alternative?
It’s a pity you didn’t feel able to go to the considered and respectful meeting, to join the parents, children, business people, tradeswomen and tradesmen, commuters and people with disabilities who walk, wheel, ride bicycles, catch buses, use motorbikes, cars and vans.
How many people attended the meeting, and of these how many were not members of the groups that organised it?
I love how these Tories are suddenly the protectors of the disabled, after decimating support systems and wrecking countless lives with their benefits assesments. Stop using disabled people as pawns.
I love these obsessive pro-cycling ableists who don’t care about anyone else but themselves, banding together to try to influence political decisions on transport.
I notice that you don’t mention families, commuters, tradesmen, local businesses, or any of those for whom cycling is not a practical alternative 🤔
It is abundantly clear that the Greens consider the disabled as a major convenience. Witness cllr Davis’ insistence at banning them – including a disabled resident – from parking in Gardner St.
The Greens really are despicable
Mike Beasley
It doesn’t matter who organised the ‘Hustings’, this meeting was transport themed and we are questioning candidates to represent us not the organisers of the event.
I feel listening to the views of the candidates of whatever party they belong will give a fairer opportunity for them to provide their thoughts on what they can do to improve the way this city is run.
Had I attended, I might have asked what plans they had for those who were unable to make use of Cycle lanes. Had they considered extending Volks Railways or introducing such a system along Western Road for instance.
Why didn’t Bricycles invite the Independent candidates?
Answer – because Independent candidates would pull them apart.
It’s standard practice at authority-wide hustings that parties which got at least 3% of votes at the most recent equivalent elections are invited to send a representative. The organisers from BHFoE, Living Streets, CyclingUK, Bricycles & Sustrans say only Labour, Tory, LibDem and Green parties met that criteria. Independents and representatives from other parties could have attended and speak as audience members.
Tut tut – it was only the Sussex University hustings that stated they had the 3% minimum vote.
The Bricycles / Sustrans hustings could have invited anyone, but they would not like anyone outside not support their views.
Interestingly it looks like all the groups involved and invited attendees seem to be from Councillor Jamie Lloyd’s echo-chamber group that plans active travel infrastructure and excludes residents, disabled groups, buses, taxis, businesses and all other road users.
L@bour candidate were poor. ‘I’m a music teacher’. Not good on details, it did strike the wrong note.
They were “singing from a different song sheet”, as it were.
The Greens just want everyone to go back to horse and cart. They are a backwards looking party and they hate the electorate having freedom.
She said: “Exercise reduces stress and anxiety levels – and active travellers breathe better quality air because the air inside cars is two to three times worse than the air outside.
It certainly doesn’t reduce stress when one is walking on a pavement and suddenly two cyclists appear on it, weaving in and of the crowds, which is what I came across in busy Churchill Square today. No doubt those two arrogant morons were supporters of the Ghastly Greens, who will turn a blind eye to this dangerous antisocial behaviour, if, heaven forbid they should get back in again.
Bricycles, Sustrans etc are unhappy because a lot of active trouble grants are being pulled. They also know that, come May, the Greens will be voted out of power, and so Bricycles et al will have their ability to influence decisions seriously curtailed. That’s why they’re running scared.
It’s strange that only pro-cycling groups try promote potential health benefits of their choice of travel.
If you look at the NHS web site, they talk about improving fitness through walking, gardening, swimming, and many other activities, but never mention cycling.
Seems these anti-motorist groups are just desperate to find reasons for promoting cycling.
I wonder if their claim of how bad the air is inside cars applies to bus journeys, and whether the alleged levels are above defined safe limits, or is this just yet more scaremongering misinformation? 🤔
Bit difficult to swim or garden your way into town
Bricycles, Sustrans etc are unhappy because a lot of active trouble grants are being pulled. They also know that, come May, the Greens will be voted out of power, and so Bricycles et al will have their ability to influence decisions seriously curtailed. That’s why they’re running scared.
Whenever cyclists don’t use the cycle lanes we have already paid for it does seem very pointless indeed.
Surely cyclists should have proficiency testing. The council could make a mint out of them on that!
So. We now have Beryl Bikes at a cost of £13m to the local taxpayer. They are hugely expensive, have a dodgy design and the technology doesn’t work…according to a review. There are also punishing fines!
Thank you Greens
Thank you Sustrans
Thank you Bricycles
Haven’t you done well.
This event was organised by the pro bike zealots and largely peaching to the converted. Did they invite any disabled rights groups, Age Concern, etc and other groups that are not able to cycle everywhere?
The public meeting was organised by a pedestrian’s group, an environmental group, a sustainable transport group, an active travel group and two groups of people who ride bicycles, among all of which are disabled members. Disabled people walk, wheel and ride bicycles. The only invitations were to panellists.
Yes, we believe you. We all know the Greens and their chums don’t like the disabled – as they don’t fit with your dogma. The wrong sort of minority
Looks like all the parties are going on field trips around Europe and America apart from the greens? But yet again they only have one agenda and thats to ban all cars.
Whilst it’s fascinating to contrast the Comments of Green Party supporters above with those of much more rational local residents it does seem curious that there seems to be no condemnation of this as an event which was so totally rigged as to have been pointless!
“Rigged”, how so?
1. Apparently seats had to be pre-booked online. This enable the organisers to weed-out applicants they didn’t want in the room. It also excluded,those who do not use the internet, and/or those who try to avoid websites operated by US entities, as most of the USA has almost no effective data protection!
2. Questions had to be submitted in writing, in advance apparently? So more weeding-out of the potentially critical!
This event is/was so ‘Intellectually Corrupt’ that the mainstream Parties have done themselves, and us electors, a great dis-service by even dignifying this crooked event by participating in it!
The usual organisation of a decent hustings is for an interest group to draw-up a list of some 3 major topics, ideally of direct significance to our City. That Agenda can be from the immediate knowledge and inspirations of the organisers; but much better is to trawl through several years of public engagement with our Council and its Committees; to analyse readers’ Comments on this website; and possibly to review Readers’ Letters to The Argus?
At the event, which needs to be for abt 3 hours, each of up to 5 Candidates (3 from Lab, Grn, and Con, + 2 more,from other affiliations drawn openly by lot by the Chairperson at the opening of the event) is given up to 10 minutes to present their position on an Agenda topic.
After the Candidates have spoken on the Agenda item the Chairperson then invites Questions to the Panel (but NOT Statements – discipline needed here!) from the audience (one at a time, no bundling of multiple questions!) for some 10-15 minutes before proceeding to the next Agenda item.
After all 3 topics have been handled ideally the Chairperson will have handled the meeting so well that there’ll be some 10-15 minutes to take random, but relevant, questions from the audience.
This last part, of random questions, should replace the usual practice of inviting each Panelist to sum-up – it’s far more important for the Candidates to hear us, their prospective electors, than it is for us to hear them surely?
And on a couple of important aspects:
– Apparently not a word was spoken about the ever-increasing problem of rising tree roots making pavements much less comfortable for users, especially those in wheelchairs, or pushing buggies with children!
All because the root-pruning maintenence of our street trees has been neglected for far too many years, perhaps 10 years or more?
To make matters worse recently planted trees are being surrounded with a 2m square of resin-bonded gravel (supposedly porous when new, but how long until irrevocably blocked by dirt creeping into the pores?), which will require destruction of that expensive resin -bonded foolishness to do root-pruning!
The traditional way was to use normal concrete paving slabs, which the roots crew could easily lift, then re-lay on completion of the pruning work!
Whilst on the west side of Jubilee Street the trees there are surrounded by approx 2m squares of galvanised steel grids – simple to lift for root-pruning! But that was probably specified by a competent professional working for the developer?
So before BHCC formally adopted Jubilee Street as a Public Highway (if it ever has)?
– And as to Cllr Allbrooke praising the current works to Western Rd, Brighton – one has to wonder what planet she’s speaking from?
In our real world spending over a million of taxpayers hard-earned money on needlessly vandalising what, post the super-successful removal of the chicanes about 20 years ago, looks to be an inexcusable action?
Because that stretch of Western Road is mainly restricted to professional drivers (buses, taxis, delivery trucks etc); because there are long clear sight-lines; because there’s a 20mph speed-limit, and because of the long lead-ins to the central Keep Left bollards created a form of a central reservation able to be a de-facto pedestrian refuge for almost the full length of the road, thus making it so very easy for mobility-impaired or vision-impaired pedestrians to cross over at almost any desired point.
That previous re-vamp of that part of Western Road has been so successful (being possibly the only truly successful highways project BHCC has spent taxpayers money on?), yet the Greens are wasting our money on a pointless destruction of excellent work done, by Labour(?), some 20 years ago!
Then, oh irony of ironies, the narrowing of the carriageways will make the road LESS comfortable for cyclists than the previous adequate situation!
“Adequate” becausemthe Clarence Square bus-stops gave c6clists a chance to get past a bus that had been following them.
And it can now be seen that the deeply regrettable deletion of the popular Clarence Square bus-stops looks,to be due to the fact that, with the narrowed carriageway, no vehicle could get past a bus if,one 2ae halted at 3ithet of those stops!
Is everyone in power, or seeking it, deliberately ignoring the ongoing debacle of the narrowing of North Street, Brighton, which seriously impedes bus traffic almost every day?
And, worst of all, for no measurable,gain, the extra footpath width being taken up by giant planters, parked delivery and shopfitters vans etc, and by ugly and uncomfortable little behches!
In fact, of the two worthwhile improvements needed to Western Road, the first, moving the central white-line closer to Waitrose, to create two westbound lanes to help regular traffic to get past buses halted at the stop outside Taj, has already been implemented, as part of routine white-line maintenence.
The second ‘improvement’ needed is restoring the traffic-light phasing at the Western Road/Dyke Road junction, to once again permit buses etc to simultaneously enter and exit Western Road?
If some sensible person in BHCC has archived the previous two-way software it should only need re-loading into the traffic-lights, thus saving the apparently high price charged for completely re-programming the lights?
Let’s now hope for some genuine grown-up and intellectually-honest hustings, with a Panel of intellectually-competent and knowledgeable Candidates?
And that the City’s voters are sufficiently perceptive to only elect quality persons to represent us as hard-working Councillors, and who will treat our hard-earned tax money with a lot more respect than has been shown during these past years since 1997!
Bricycles , Sustrans have their own pro cycling agenda and will do everything to push that. They don’t care about the disabled or the old, and even pedestrians have to pay second fiddle to cycles. This event was an obvious fix up – Bricycles know that come May, their chums in the Green party (hello cllr Lloyd!) will get voted out and so their influence will wane. Brighton needs to free itself of these fixated selfish fruitcakes.
All of the organising local community groups (including Living Streets, BHFoE, Cycling UK B&H and Brighton Active Travel) have members who are old or have disabilities or are both elderly and have disabilities. The public meeting was to learn how politicians plan to make the city better for everybody to get around safely and easily.
See comment above. Why did you exclude Independent candidates? Nothing to do with a 3pc threshold – you were just worried they’d ask difficult questions! You just wanted an echo chamber – just admit it . I look forward to May
Bricycles and Systrans’ are scared of democracy – that’s the simple truth
You make some good points here. Please reassure me that this message or something similar has been sent directly to your councillors, the chair of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability committee and to the council officers responsible for the Western Road work.
I wish they had spent that £13m on improving basic services, which they fail to deliver.
Instead of yet another vanity project.