Council cabinet members are due to discuss potential locations for a park and ride scheme in Brighton and Hove at a meeting next month.
The cabinet’s forward plan said that members are to discuss a report on the feasibility of potential park and ride locations.
Brighton and Hove City Council has explored the possibility of a park and ride scheme for many years – and it was one of 10 recommendations from a local Climate Assembly in 2020. The assembly was made up of 50 randomly selected residents.
Councillors agreed to spend between up to £30,000 on a feasibility study in December 2021.
Brighton and Hove Buses proposed a trial using Mill Road – similar to the football match-day scheme – to start in June 2022. Buses were to run between there and the centre of Brighton.
But, with no assurances from the Highways Agency that signs on the A23 and A27 would be in place in time, Brighton and Hove Buses dropped its plans.
Other factors included the need for a traffic regulation order, requiring a three-week consultation, and uncertainty about whether the scheme would require planning permission.
The temporary park and ride was expected to cost about £100,000, with the bus company bearing the operating costs of providing stewards and promoting the scheme.
Mill Road has about 450 spaces, including disabled bays near the entrance at the bottom end.
When in use, the road would have been one way as when Brighton and Hove Albion play home matches at the Amex Stadium in Falmer.
Green councillors said that if the scheme were to become permanent, they would expect a reduction in car parking in the centre of Brighton.
A park and ride already operates from Withdean Stadium, with the first three hours parking free and then a charge of £3 from 7am to 8pm daily and £10 overnight.
Those parking at Withdean can take the 27 bus into the centre of Brighton.
A report to the cabinet is due to published a week before the cabinet meeting which is scheduled for Thursday 14 November.
Waste of time, about 30 years too late.
Nobody goes into the city centre these days
There is a perfectly good bus service across the city if you did want to go ‘down town’ as we used to call it.
what are you on about?
Agree with you on this issue PP. The park and ride idea has been done to death so many times in the past.
What’s the point of every few years councillors making noise about trying to find a site and nothing happening. It’s a waste of time, waste of money to re-look at again, and the council are still living in the 1990s if they think this is answer to the city’s transport issues.
2 massive empty car parks at falmer can be used. One by the sports pitch and one by the football ground
Seriously, I don’t know why this isn’t the #1 suggestion.
Bringing back the 25x to service those car parks as park and rides…
Problem is that when it is in use during a match then P&R is suspended
Visitors to Brighton would /do not know where Withdean is , very difficult to get to.Dare I say use some of the Preston park which is underused ,it would be on the main arterial road into Brighton and could have good transport links , look at Nottingham , goose fair site , for good example
It needs to be easily accessible from both the A23 & A27 , Braypool would be ideal.
White elephant…red herring…whatever… a way of appearing to tackle the car problem and promote sustainable transport whilst increasing the car problem and undermining sustainable transport. Has been raised by every labour opposition so far this century, and quashed by every labour admin so far this century.
Issues include:
It is expensive to get hold of enough land in the right place – car ppl don’t want to pay to use it, so everyone else has to. It needs to be significant – 400 spaces doesn’t touch the sides.
Most vehicle movements in b&h start and end in b&h. This is not a relevant service for residents who make most journeys. Instead it will be used by commuters and visitors, and will be in competition with existing bus and train services, undermining them and ultimately worsening them.
It is a service for cars, and will promote car use. For it to have an impact in the city, visitor car parking spaces will need to removed, or it will just promote increased trips. Labour doesn’t have the political courage or conviction to do this, so we will get the worst of both worlds – a costly service which increases congestion and undermines sustainable alternatives.
The council are already struggling with the impact of modal shift away from cars in the centre and are planning all sorts of gimmicks to get them to return – are they planning to subsidise motorists to both come into the city and to stay away from the city simultaneously? Makes no sense.
Worth noting that park and ride in other locations – Bath, Cambridge, Oxford… hasn’t sorted congestion and all these places are actively seeking other solutions – 15min city, congestion charge….
Prediction: labour will tinker around with this v slowly and come up with a plan can’t be done during this admin but (honestly promisedly) they will get right down to if they are voted in again…. And so on….
Utter rubbish.
Land, there are a number of sites suitable, the current football P&R wouldn’t cost anything being its a road, would require Traffic orders and what have you.
Then there’s the University and Amex that could be used, no need to buy the land, a deal could be sorted to rent the land.
400 spaces is still 400 less vehicles in the city centre.
Most movements start and end in b&h. Well if people live in the city I guess their journey would.
Residents tend to use the best mode of transport for their own needs and requirements.
The idea of park and ride is to reduce CARS in the city, people who commute already will continue to do so, but with ever increasing train prices, a park and ride might be a cheaper alternative and as for bus services, very few would revert to their car and drive to a site to get a bus.
Utter rubbish it will promote car use, it might encourage those that use their cars now to use the P&R, other side of the coin.
As we’ve already seen, car parking spaces have already been removed and has had a direct impact of parking revenue.
Stupidly, you say it will just promote increased trips, if people are parking and riding more often, just think of the money they will be putting into the local economy and not congesting and polluting the city, win win.
We’ve already seen the the ‘Greens’ didn’t have the political courage or conviction or backbone to do this when a perfectly good proposal was put forward.
A costly service you say, well £100K was all that was needed as B&H were fronting the rest and prepared to run the service. What has £13 million on Cycling achieved, nowt.
Hmm, Oxford and Cambridge, both University cities that hardly compares to Brighton and as for Bath, seriously, their streets and roads are so narrow you can’t swing a cat.
Labour actually introduced the original P&R until the ‘Greens’ done away with it.
To work it’s needs to be
Easy to find
Large
Low cost
Regular service
15 (or ideally less) mins journey time
“Brighton and Hove City Council has explored the possibility of a park and ride scheme for many years – and it was one of 10 recommendations from a local Climate Assembly in 2020.”
Well, we had The Greens back then, so no interest in climate there, just fraud. I’m sure if there was backhander offered or a pet (backhander) company to award the scheme to, it would have been steamrollered through.
That goodness we finally have a council with genuine concern for our climate.
The climate assembly was something put together under Labour.
The Greens have always opposed Park & Ride here as it is a poor solution. Labour know this but have always pretended to support it as a triangulation between sustainable transport and car culture.
Far from the Greens being fraudulent, they are the only ones with the political bravery and honesty to call out P&R for the costly distraction that it is.
If the Greens had such a great message and vision, why were they so unceremoniously kicked out at the last local elections?
Correct, the weak minded ‘Greens’ have always been Anti park and and ride and transport.
The ‘Greens’ are weak, have no concept of transport networks other than two wheels. The ‘Greens’ haven’t got a clue that people need alternative transport, cycle lanes and hubs are great, but where’s the improved infrastructure for buses, no where in sight. The ‘Greens’ have caused many bus services to be altered to accommodate the so called ‘Traffic management’ improvement schemes, that have done little to improve bus services only made them worse.
So great were the ‘Greens,’ they got whitewashed at the last elections, I wonder why?
A trial park and ride scheme did happen under the Green administration though (between June-Sept 2022). So not sure what your point is Miles Monty. Obv it would have been ridiculous for it to have progressed during the height of the pandemic. The bus company were going to be analysing info and data from the trial after it ended in autumn 2022. Things seem to have stalled after that, but I’m assuming bus company analysis did happen and that because from about March 2023 council business would have ground due to the pre-election period before the current lot came in in May.
Not sure how you think encouraging people to drive to the city and get on a bus, rather than just getting a train, helps the climate either – but your question about 2020 is just odd and suggests you don’t know the detail.
Rutter rubbish, the trial never took place, did you not read the article?
No signage, no TRO and no planning permission and you accuse others of not knowing.
There are 1726 spaces in Council run car parks in Brighton. Add to that the 1268 spaces in NCP/RCP car parks. There are hundreds of spaces in Churchill Square and Brighton Station car parks. There is all day street parking along the seafront. There are frequent trains from the north, east and west of the city. There are more than 10 bus routes running 7 days per week from places outside the city to the city centre.
And the price is extortionate….
Like other have said – town centre is no longer an attraction (unless you are begging).
It might come back one day – who knows
Lucky that BHCC/ the Greens removed so many parking places in the city centre to be replaced by under subscribed cycle lanes.
The Council are themselves to blame!
It’s been a Labour council for most of the last decade though (7 out of 10 years), and during the time there was a Green council, they were a minority administration, so they didn’t have the number of councillors to vote things through like cycle lanes without the support from another party at the council – which was usually Labour.
Yes Greens have introduced cycle lanes in the city, but it’s a myth that this is just down to them, they could only ever do it with support from other parties, and Labour have led on transport policy in the city for the majority of the last 10 years.
We’ve not had a one party council for some time but greens have been in control twice in the last decade or so and yes they needed support from other parties and just scrape through by very small margins, looking at the votes, it’s clear some abstained from voting reducing the numbers and getting a majority margin. 54 councillors so 28 votes required for a win. With 20 odd ‘Greens’ only 8 were needed to carry a thing through before any abstained.
Good to see all the Green anti-motorist, anti-business supporters coming to support their obsessive ideological objection to park-and-ride as they claim it encourages private transport.
Thankfully Labour are trying to support the local economy, and objectively see whether there are practical solutions.