Big parking charge rises are set to come into effect across Brighton and Hove next month after Green and Labour Councillors devised, proposed and then voted through a scheme of eye-watering increases at last month’s Brighton and Hove City Council Budget meetings.
No areas of the City will be spared by the increases, which look to be excessive, unnecessary and driven primarily by a motive of penalising car use in City (a car free city centre is a current policy objective of the Green-Labour coalition at Hove Town Hall).
The changes include higher than inflationary increases of between 15-20% on average for all on-street pay and display and other car parks across Brighton and Hove. This will hit both local community car parks relied upon by residents such as Rottingdean Marine Cliffs and West Street and well as popular seafront car parks at Black Rock and King Alfred car parks.
Small businesses will be squeezed as traders will pay nearly £800 for their permits next year after a 5% rise; and events will be more expensive to hold in the City with Conference delegates at the Brighton Centre to be charged 20% more for the use of the Regency Square car park.
But the biggest rises have been reserved for residential parking permit holders, with the cost of permits rising by up to 90% after Labour Councillors asked for jaw dropping rises at the eleventh hour during the Budget Council meeting.
Labour’s hike, agreed to by the Greens, will target two and three-car households in almost every city parking zone, who will now be expected to pay higher surcharges on their residential parking permits from April.
A two car-family in Hollingdean will now face a 30% hike on last year’s permit charge, seeing the cost rise from £265 to £345 and three nurses living in a house in central Brighton, commuting around the city and county providing care, will face a 90% rise in the cost of buying a residential permit next year from £295 to £560.
The Labour measure was designed to penalise car use, with the Council’s Finance Officer noting in their comments that this permit hike will price more families out of having a second car, starting with those on lower incomes in Brighton and Hove.
The Conservatives are concerned that the cumulative impact of these anti-car policies may well have a damaging effect on the local economy of the City.
This is a time when we need to be supporting our businesses and small traders get back on their feet after the pandemic, encouraging as much trade in our city as possible and opening back up to attract visitors. However these large increases in parking along with other policies such as bus gate fines and experimental traffic orders are making moving about the city and doing business more difficult.
The massive rise in residential parking permits may well encourage more families to leave the city, putting further pressure on the tax base. The City already has a big problem with families leaving, reflected in the collapsing demand for primary school places (projected to be 9.5% between 2023 and 2025). Mums and Dads often need two vehicles to go to work and go about their daily lives and this this is the norm for many families living in places such as Hollingdean, Elm Grove, Hove Park and they should not be penalised for this. As the Council makes it harder and harder for people to live in this city, this trend will accelerate.
Making the pill harder to swallow for residents is the poor service that they have experienced during the past two years from the Council’s parking department.
Like many council services at the moment, the parking permit system is one where residents are not receiving value for money.
Face to face parking services at Hove Town Hall have remained closed since the pandemic began with staff continuing to work from home and the Council’s remote parking services failing to provide a consistent service and issue permits on time.
One resident wrote saying that she’s been trying to get visitors parking permits online but to avail. She said she called the council but there was no answering of phones. “Where is everybody? Please can you help me, I’m 84 years old” she said.
Residents in Brighton and Hove are being asked by Labour and the Greens to pay a bigger parking bill for a worse service to meet a car-free city vision they didn’t vote for. It may be that they decide at the next local elections that enough is enough.
ENDS.
