Red route on course after town hall debate

A plan to turn a stretch of Western Road into a red route can go ahead after a scrutiny committee vote.

Work is already under way to remake the road between Holland Road, Hove, and Montpelier Road, Brighton, with a complete closure in place for seven weeks. The road is due to reopen as a red route.

Conservative, Green and Independent members of Brighton and Hove City Council asked for the decision – made by the council’s Labour cabinet – to be “called in”.

The request was considered by the council’s Labour-dominated Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee last night (Tuesday 6 October). The committee could have sent the decision back to the cabinet to reconsider but didn’t.

Opposition councillors said that the council’s cabinet did not have enough information, especially about the potential adverse effects of a red route on traders, when it made the decision last month.

The road will become a red route as an “experiment” with adjustments possible, often at short notice, the committee was told in the meeting at Hove Town Hall.

The committee also heard from Catherine Lane, from the Western Road Community Group, who described the proposals as the “heaviest tool being reached for first”.

This was a reference to the way in which red routes put in place a total ban on stopping, other than in marked bays, and allow camera enforcement.

A report to the council’s cabinet, she said, failed to consider other proper options such as making better use of existing powers to tackle problem parking.

Ms Lane, who cares for her disabled father, has previously warned that the proposals would make life harder for people with disabilities.

They can stop on the current yellow lines – mostly double yellow lines – for up to three hours but not on the proposed red lines which will be backed by camera enforcement.

Delivery drivers would also be affected although the council said that there would be some disabled parking bays and delivery bays. Traders fear that there will be too few of each, giving rise to health and safety concerns.

Almost all of the premises can only receive deliveries to the front door – and Ms Lane cited a legal requirement placed on councils by the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

Section 122 of the act requires councils “to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of vehicular and other traffic (including pedestrians) and the provision of suitable and adequate parking facilities on and off the highway”.

It also requires councils to secure and maintain “reasonable access to premises” and the red route scheme would not do that, Ms Lane said.

She said that the feedback from traders in two Brighton roads with red routes – London Road and Lewes Road – had not been encouraging.

She added that shops had reported big drops in turnover and profit – and Taj, the international grocer, blaming the scheme for the closure of its London Road store.

Archipelagos Gyros, in Lewes Road. lost almost a third of its business, she said, and was now closed at lunchtime. The owner, Asem Gashi, was now concerned for his two Western Road outlets.

Ms Lane said: “We’ve been offered accountancy data to show the impact of red routes on their businesses.

“Now, a red route is coming to Western Road and to 185 businesses. Once was a lesson. Twice would be the choice of councillors.”

Buswatch vice-chair Nigel Perkins said that red routes made bus journeys more efficient – and that, after a six-week consultation in January, there was support for the project.

Mr Perkins said: “It would be a real shame if we lost this opportunity to bring in a red route at this point, just when we’ve had this opportunity just after the long-awaited resurfacing of the road.”

Conservative councillor Alistair McNair shared traders’ concerns about the lack of rear access to shops, making them reliant on the loading bays.

He said: “Red routes in the city issued over 12,000 fines in a year, 70 per cent of all camera fines and clearly failed to stop poor parking.

“This red route is simply an extra revenue stream at the expense of local livelihoods.”

The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, said that he hoped that the route would not make any money because “then it would be working”. Forecasts suggest that it could generate £50,000 a year from fines.

Councillor Taylor said: “From day one, officers will be down on the street, talking to businesses and understanding the impact on deliveries.

“Councillor Muten and myself may even be down there on day one to understand the impact – and things can be changed rapidly if deliveries are absolutely not working for businesses.”

Despite the concerns raised about Lewes Road, he said, the area had a very low vacancy rate of 4 to 5 per cent.

But in Western Road, persistent anti-social parking had remained a problem, with more than 2,300 “drive aways” as civil enforcement officers – traffic wardens – prepared to issue a fixed penalty notice.

He said that no other road in Brighton and Hove was subject to as much parking enforcement yet only two tickets a day were being successfully issued.

Green councillor Ollie Sykes, who represents Brunswick and Adelaide ward, said that residents had been calling for something to be done since he was first elected to represent the area in 2011.

Councillor Sykes said: “There is a particular section between Waterloo Street and Market Street where there is a long distance where there is no loading bay.

“There is a traffic island which, if that stays, you can’t put a loading bay in. There are obvious places where you can see there are going to be problems for businesses.”

Natasha Barefield, from the disability charity Possability People, said that disabled people were avoiding London Road and Lewes Road where there are already red routes.

She said that the 50-metre distance between the disabled parking bays was not necessarily an accessible walking route when considering dropped kerbs.

Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh criticised the lack of an economic impact assessment before the council’s cabinet decided to go ahead with the red route. She said comparable assessments had been undertaken in Birmingham and Luton.

Councillor Fishleigh highlighted the loss of Taj, in London Road, saying that as it was not possible to find out from a report to councillors how many deliveries had been aborted because bays had been full.

On deliveries, she said: “It’s not good enough for us to say, ‘oh, you’ll sort it out as you go along.’ You need to look at the loads and the types of vehicles delivering.

“You need to look at the frequency. You need to look at the likelihood of bays being blocked because apparently Mr Taj’s loading bay was always blocked by other businesses.”

Conservative councillor Anne Meadows criticised the idea that businesses could co-ordinate deliveries between themselves and the council once they had made it round the M25 and down to Brighton.

She said that the Western Road branch of the Co-op had been struggling to bring in deliveries during road resurfacing work and didn’t expect things to improve when the red route was in place.

Co-op store manager Matt Parnell wrote to councillors before the meeting to raise concerns about potential problems with the red route after deliveries had been unable to get through since the start of the road repairs.

Councillor Meadows said: “It’s really difficult to make a decision when you don’t know the financial impact – and you do need an economic impact assessment which could be done easily by looking at where we have routes already.

“We’ve had red routes in Lewes Road. We’ve got one in London Road. You could use data from those two to help calculate an informed economic impact assessment.”

Councillor Taylor said again that the red route was not about making money but focused on easing congestion, improving bus flow and reducing illegal parking.

Labour and Green councillors voted against sending the decision back to the council’s cabinet to be reconsidered. Councillors Meadows and Fishleigh voted in favour.