Our Conservative team immediately set to work on behalf of the community to protect public parks from parking charges

Maintaining public access to parks is one of the most basic requirements of councils and one that the Conservatives believe should be at the forefront of the Brighton & Hove City Council’s priorities.

The Nation is presently grappling with the impact of the pandemic.  People more than ever are needing parks and open spaces for their exercise, health and mental wellbeing and Government and the council are encouraging people, whilst acting safely and responsibly, to use these spaces.

That is why Conservatives were alarmed and appalled to see proposals from the Council this week to introduce car parking charges to eight popular parks around the city.

The 8 parks the Council proposed parking charges for were:

• Easthill Park
• Hollingdean Park
• Happy Valley
• Saltdean Oval
• Saunders Park
• Vale Park
• Victoria Recreation Ground
• Wild Park

The plans were published with just a few days’ notice before a Committee meeting on Tuesday, without consultation.

Our Conservative team immediately set to work on behalf of the community to oppose these plans.

Councillor Lee Wares crunched the numbers, conducting a financial analysis of the proposal.

The report said that such a plan would generate £50,000 of income a year; a mere £137 per day.

As Councillor Wares pointed out, the Council’s decision to keep Madeira Drive closed over the summer - against the wishes of local businesses and disability groups - cost the Council £3,611 per day in lost parking revenue and Cost £300 per day on Marshalls. 

Trying to claw some of this back through introducing parking charges at these 8 parks would be a drop in the ocean and regardless, residents that visit these parks should not be burdened having to pay for the financial consequences of a poor policy decision by Labour and the Greens.

Last year the council raked in £27.5m on parking charges and fines.  Perhaps the council should look closely at the efficiency of collecting that money rather than penalising residents yet again.

As the Councillor for Woodingdean, where Happy Valley Park is, I put forward an argument that residents, particularly the elderly who may not able to walk to a public park, would be.  Invariably, such a proposal will impact the elderly and low-income families and deny many others from accessing these public spaces.

Councillor Mary Mears scrutinised the practicality of the proposals and discovered they would be impossible to implement in a number of cases.

The parking site at Saltdean Oval, for instance, had already been transferred to the Saltdean Lido Community Interest Company and was included in their lease which has been signed by the Council.

At the Committee meeting on Thursday our Conservative Councillors presented this evidence clearly and made the case for the plans be rejected.

In a win for the community, the Conservatives won the day and the proposals were defeated.

But what lessons can be learned from this saga?

First, this has shown that the council needs a much clearer direction about the need to protect basic public access to green spaces in the City from its political leaders.

At Full Council meetings the governing parties are constantly setting policy directions that do the opposite, typically resulting in proposals that penalise car use across the city.

A case in point - at the most recent council meeting, without much scrutiny, Labour Councillors put forward a new 20-minute neighbourhoods idea that would ask the Council to introduce policies encouraging residents to conduct the majority of their day to day life within walking distance - 800 metres - of their own homes.  It is not difficult to see how this ideology would lead to policies that penalise residents driving to visit a park or green space.

The Conservatives believe residents should be free to use all our City’s public parks and green spaces and not be penalised for doing so.  We are all residents of one City and a resident in Brighton should not be penalised for wanting to visit a park in Hove and vice versa.

Second, this shows the need for the council’s leaders to properly consider the financial consequences of their policy decisions before they make them.  The political decision to keep Madeira Drive closed for such an extended period over the summer had unintended financial consequences for parking revenue which has now come back to bite.  Proper analysis at the time would have shown this. 

Third it shows an urgent need for the council to improve transparency and democracy, something the Conservatives are growing increasingly concerned about.  These proposals were introduced with no consultation and if it wasn’t for the work of Conservatives in exposing them, could well have been rubber stamped.

The Conservative Group is the only group providing the scrutiny and opposition that the people of Brighton & Hove City Council deserve.

Our united Conservative Team will continue to stand up for green spaces and parks in the City – and free access to them for residents.