A Brighton neighbourhood which voted for a parking scheme in principle appears to have changed its mind after seeing detailed plans.
Just over half of residents in the south of Hollingdean responding to a consultation voted in favour of developing plans for a seven-day-a-week scheme last year.
But after these were drawn up and put to them again, 60% of the third of households which responded voted against.
People living in roads in the north of Hollingdean voted against last year, and were not included in the scheme consulted on this year.
Councillor Theresa Fowler said: “I live in the ward so I understand all the issues on both sides of the argument.
“I was really hoping that with this consultation we would get a concise yes or no, which we have got – a no.
“I’ve had quite a lot of residents come up to me and say they changed their minds because they wanted a light scheme.
“They said yes to the previous consultation because they wanted light touch and they said no to this one because they didn’t want a full scheme.
“Also there’s the cost of living. People are telling me they can’t afford it.
“It the lower end of Hollingdean that’s having really bad issues with parking, car swapping and vans parked randomly.
“The only way for it to come back again is for people to bring deputations to committee and it will go to the next round.”
The committee also discussed a leaflet published by residents, which Brighton and Hove News understands said the cost of permits would be much higher than it actually is.
But officers said the correct pricing was included on official leaflets sent to every household, and on the online consultation page.
Brighton and Hove City Council wrote to 2223 addresses, and received 758 responses from April to June this year.
After residents presented a petition in March 2019, the first consultation on parking schemes in Hollingdean took place in April 2022 and presented both light-touch and full schemes as potential options.
After 52% voted in favour of a full scheme last year, the second consultation only provided the option of a parking scheme which would have operated from Monday to Sunday, 8am to 8pm.
It doesn’t help that it has come to light that the Council has a plan to turn all light touch schemes into full schemes!
Bhcc are only interested in screwing money out of the motorist. This is from a department that managed to lose £3m parking revenue to a scammer and not have the gumption to pursue the matter in court.
The company went into administration. Yes, I thought the Council went very quiet after that. You’d think they would have picked it up way before that huge, huge loss.
The Audit and Accounts departments were probably ‘working’ from home
The same council who have totally restricted parking on the road leading to Sheepcote Valley, removed all parking on the road – BUT does NOTHING to enforce the new restrictions as cars/ especially park up all weekend and when the privelidged lot of Brighton College turn up for any sports events at their sports ground !
Incompetence springs to mind !
Brighton & Hove Council only care about revenue they make & quick money making schemes. They already know what they are going to do and they lie to residents & let them think they are voting when the decisions have already been made. They have caused the parking issues across Brighton by spreading out resident parking to most areas when there never was a problem with parking in the first place. Certain residents get so fed up they just agree to sign up for it, they give in too easily & the council get away with these unnecessary parking schemes. It has to stop, only the centre of Brighton in the town needs any restrictions. Take these away & stop ripping off Brighton Residents. So much business is lost in Brighton due to the highest parking charges in England after London.
You are absolutely right. I remember when I worked near Hove Town Hall and it was possible to park anywhere nearby, free of charge. Then the council installed parking meters, and this led to cars parking further away into the more residential areas. Naturally the residents there complained that they could no longer park outside their homes, providing the council with the excuse that restricted parking, with parking meters should take place there as well. Then, like a set of dominoes, this began to take place all over Brighton & Hove, to the delight of the incompetent Greens.
Meanwhile, the bus service became worse, as more and more people took to using public transport. Many buses do not arrive on time, and often are cancelled, so that, at some bus stops, when they do arrive they are already full.
No wonder so many people are now avoiding coming into Brighton and Hove, and every week sees a further closing down of shops. Why bother, when one can park cheaply, or totally free of charge elsewhere?
As soon as you have restricted parking in the centre of town then you find that more vehicles will try to park just outside that zone and thus cause problems there. The people in those areas will then have problems (as has happened in the past) and will ask for something to be done to help their area. It will then spiral outwards and more areas will ask for parking controls and so on. You cannot stop it.
I live in the area immediately north of the town center CPZ when it was introduced years ago it became almost impossible to park due to displaced motorists seeking free parking. The ripple effect was inevitable.
I have the questionnaire in front of me!
It states that do you want parking permits Monday to Friday or Monday to Sunday.
Nowhere did it ask if people didn’t want it at all!
That’s how the Greens did the business!
As deceitful as the Tories they criticise!
Yep, hollingdean have voted not to have a parking tax, a tax to park outside your residence. Good on them.
These parking schemes apparently prop up the bus company, a company that provides the slowest transport across the city, no express routes.
I’d like to see this council run the busses like TFL do because honestly it’s a joke trying to get a bus anywhere
Simon, there’s an old saying, ‘be careful of what you wish for it might just come true’.
Running buses like TfL do. Not a great idea, let me explain the history of it.
When Buses were Nationalised in 69/70, to keep it simple London’s buses went into one ownership under the banner London Transport or London Country. London Transport therefore in theory owned all the routes.
It’s a bit complicated but basically when everything went de-nationalised London remained in Public Control and was sold off in bits. London Buses or TfL as they became, retained the routes and offered these as Quality contracts for 5 years. The process has continued to this day hence why we have different bus companies operating in London, Go-Ahead, Stagecoach etc etc.
The problem with these quality contracts is they are paid for by us the ‘Tax’ payer. You can bet these companies are all making a profit too.
Secondly, they are contracts as I said paid for by us, and can’t be easily changed if there’s a problem during that 5 year time period. And what I mean by that is for example, TfL pay a company X amount to run say 5 buses every day but then a new estate or shopping center is built and the route now needs extra buses for example. A contract can not be renewed or adjusted easily, so most will run until the end of the period. That means putting out a second contract usually on a temporary basis. It could be the reverse where too many buses are on the route, in this situation it is difficult and expensive to adjust and compensation will need to be paid out if that company have purchased buses and staff for this work.
So effectively, bus companies in London are paid to operate buses if passengers use them or not.
I did say it was complicated.
Brighton and Hove are a private company and operate commercially, meaning all their routes need to be paid for by us the users. Yes there are subsides that are paid, for bus passes and some routes are contracted under tenders or paid for by the council like school buses, but in the main Brighton and Hove are a Private Company who have to pay to run their buses.
B&H can alter and change bus routes and service’s whenever they like. They may introduce a new route that they discover is very popular so need to add a bus and can do this within a set time period, likewise they can withdraw a route if it isn’t viable. Neither of these options costs the tax payer anything because they are run commercially and not a London Style contract.
TfL are currently Billions in debt and would no doubt have been wound up years ago but of course its a sort of government department as such.
I don’t think our council could afford to pay someone to run our buses unless Council taxes are hiked up and fares increased.
Correction, parking revenue does NOT prop up the bus companies as you imply, yes there is some funding for certain routes and for free bus passes but receive no income from our taxes.
I wonder why they are the slowest across town, perhaps road narrowing’s, poorly phased traffic lights, no Bus priority systems in place, poorly planned road network like Valley Gardens, speed restrictions and a host of other failings might have something to do with it.
Correct apart from the coast road 12’s there’s no Express Routes, and you have a point there.
But we did have a council who effectively couldn’t careless about public transport, didn’t want a park and ride and messed around with the taxi ranks and didn’t want to listen to Transport experts etc.
They actually voted to not have a full/heavy touch scheme. They originally wanted light touch. BHCC took that option away from them in the final consultation. So actually, they were prepared to pay a ‘car tax’ as you put it but wanted a scheme that suited them.
No, they were asked what type of Parking Zone they wanted not ‘IF’ they wanted a zone.
We have a light scheme(S ,Hartington/Elm Grove) and to tell truth, I’d swap fir a harder regime tomorrow. £130 for 1 hrs 6-7pm. I’m at work for the other hour I pay for! They’ve just recently banned pavement parking(they’re 4m wide) on Elm Grove, making spaces even more of a premium. Tax to park outside your house ; sometimes can’t even park in my street!!
They’ve all done duff consultations over the years, because you either get skewed questions or something happens afterwards that means it all changes and you’re never asked again. Some years back there was a consultation in my street about communal rubbuish bins to replace bag collections. The proposed sites of these bins were mapped and I voted in favour on that basis, because there was one very handy and I was fed up with the gulls strewing the bag contents everywhere and having to clear it up. The vote from the few who bothered to reply ( plenty of HMOs in the street and a lot of apathy) was very marginally in favour of the new plan. However, after a few weeks – presumably after someone complained about the siting of the ‘handy’ bin – it disappeared. never to be replaced, and we have never been asked again.
The Tories/Greens or whoever were never much to do with all this – it was just officers/employees driving the bus. Similarly, ‘they’ decided some years back to ditch black box recycling collections in this street because of the number of flats etc that had nowhere to put them outside. Fair enough, but many residents did have somewhere to put them outside and diligently recycled, as did I. Now, none of us have black boxes, the nearest communal recycling bins being too far away and arbitrarily placed. As I’ve aged and got less mobile all of this is impossible, so I rely on the goodwill of a neighbour.
One size fits all solutions don’t work and it would be nice if somebody or anybody recognised this, but no chance with the lumbering CityClean mis-operation.
Came in in my zone ‘S’ with 5% of the eligible voters returning YES. The Greens kept it up with 4 separate voting schemes until they got their 50%+ of respondents, which what with voter fatigue happened to be less than 10% ,I believe.
The Parking/Transport department believes it can do anything it likes without being accountable.
BHCC loves to screw the motorist and laughs in the face of democracy
Yes I like these questionnaires that are very good at getting the answer the ‘Green’ council want.
Question: Please indicate what type of parking you would like in your street.
1 Light timed M-F.
2 Full M-F.
3 Full M-S.
Yes, seems manipulative to me.
The presumptive sale. What colour would you like?
In the first meeting the councilors were asked if charging would be sold off to a private company, they gave a very reluctant yes, the private company would then be able to charge what they liked without any capping
I’m surprised residents managed to vote ‘No’.
Surely the Council fixed the consultation so that you could only vote in favour of scheme? Failing that , why did BHCC not manage to ‘reinterpret’ the figures so they got a YES vote. Come on Council – you’re losing your touch!
Because the first vote was ‘Green’.
Shouldn’t have to pay to park outside your own home. We aren’t all rich. I don’t even drive or have a car but I still think it takes the piss to pay so much to park your car. It’s so wrong.
The council have lost so much revenue from seafront parking and other areas that are now blocked to cars they have to screw the residents. I live in a parking permit area but get increasingly annoyed with the amount of trade vans that park illegally and residents who can’t park properly and take up 2 or 3 spaces. Traffic wardens do come regularly but all they can do is ticket illegally parked vehicles but some don’t care and end up getting several tickets and the vehicle still isn’t removed.
Something needs to change drastically
The Transport/Parking Department needs to change – as in, they all need sacking.
What you gonna do when your boiler needs replacing, or you want a kitchen extension or loft conversion ? Are you going to insist the tradesman comes by bus ? A traders permit costs 1400 a year for a Euro5 work van. It’s cheaper to park illegally and take the tickets.
I think there’s also the aspect of people not being told articulately what they are being consulted on, so they feel they have more control over the decision then they actually do.
It’s a failure of communication, perhaps.