A business owner and carer challenged Brighton and Hove City Council’s justifications for turning Western Road into a red route.
Catherine Lane, a member of the Western Road Community Group, compared a council press release, published yesterday (Thursday 10 September) with the report prepared for a cabinet meeting in the coming week.
She emailed members of the council’s cabinet and opposition councillors about the discrepancies between the two documents less than a week before a decision on the scheme is due to be made.
Ms Lane, who cares for her elderly father, told cabinet members in June, that the proposed red route would prevent blue badge holders from going to the shops.
She is also one of scores of traders and residents who attended a heated meeting with councillors on Tuesday (8 September).
Several spoke about how a red route would affect them, citing the experiences of traders in Lewes Road, London Road Preston Road.
The group is considering legal action if the council’s cabinet agrees to turn Western Road into a red route.
Traders are also worried about a 45-day closure of the road for rebuilding and resurfacing in the run up to the busiest time of the year for retailers. Many are expecting stock deliveries during the closure.
Ms Lane said yesterday (Thursday 10 September) that the report to the council’s cabinet said that the purpose of the route was to reduce congestion and improve bus journey times.
But in previous publicity material, Ms Lane said that the council had said that the red route would make Western Road a “safer place to shop” from Montpelier Road to Holland Road.
Yet, collision data in the report “does not identify incidents specifically attributable to vehicles loading or stopping at the kerbside”.
According to the council’s equality impact assessment, the scheme’s objectives are related to congestion, safety, carbon and air quality.
Ms Lane said: “Bus reliability does not appear. Residents have been told the scheme is primarily about safety (the April press release, the council’s news item of (Friday) 26 June headed ‘Western Road will be a safer place to shop’ and today’s statement) and primarily about buses (the June decision and the September report).
“Cabinet is entitled to know which.”
A council press release yesterday said: “The scheme is not about making money.”
But enforcement was expected to generate £50,000 year, the council said, a relatively small sum when compared with the wider parking service income.
The press release said that bus journeys took 16.7 per cent longer than they did in 2015, a detail that Ms Lane said was not in the official report.
She said: “We would be grateful to know the source of the figure, the baseline in minutes and how much of the increase is attributed to kerbside stopping as against general traffic growth over 11 years.
“If the council holds journey-time data for the corridor, we ask that it be placed before cabinet on Thursday. If it does not, we ask that the figure be withdrawn.”
She also questioned the “enforcement” rationale for a red route. Council figures said that there were 705 enforcement visits to vehicles parked on the existing double yellow lines from April to August this year, with 684 penalty charge notices issued and 2,315 vehicles being driven away.
Labour councillor Andrei Czolak, who represents Brunswick and Adelaide, has backed the red route and posted on his Facebook page that illegal parking along Western Road had been a continuing issue from when he was running for election in 2023.
Councillor Czolak said: “It’s become clear that the stretch of road has some of the highest numbers of enforcement in the city in terms of footfall.
“However, due to the five-minute observation rule (standard among local authorities), we’re not seeing the type of enforcement necessary to combat the illegal parking.
“Since this idea was originally floated a year ago, I (tragically) record the number of vehicles parked on double yellows between Waitrose and Palmeira Square when travelling by bus along the stretch of road.
“At 5pm today (Thursday 10 September), there was 44 vehicles (42 cars and two motorbikes), of which only five had a blue badge that I could see, that would justify their being there. Only 11 per cent of those parked there were adhering to the rules.
“There are a number of factors that the administration and council officers need to factor in to ensure that local businesses and those who have blue badges are best mitigated against disruption – but pretending that this issue doesn’t exist is just fanciful.”
Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport and city infrastructure, said: “The resurfacing works represent an important investment in Western Road while the red route will help tackle long-standing problems with obstructive parking, congestion and delays.
“This will benefit residents, businesses, bus passengers and other road users alike.”
The cabinet is due to meet at 10.30am on Thursday (17 September) at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast.
