Parking permits could be implemented in Hanover and Elm Grove by next summer – but only if enough residents and businesses give the go ahead.
Last autumn, 70% of people responding to a survey in the area said parking was a problem, and more than half said commuter parking was a contributing factor.
Now, the council is set to launch a consultation detailing a proposed scheme and asking whether it should be given the go ahead.
Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, Brighton and Hove’s cabinet member for the Environment said: “Following requests from motorists, ward councillors and other residents asking us to review parking in Hanover and Elm Grove, the workshops were held to make absolutely sure that there was a general desire for us to look at the issue.
“It will be interesting to see the results later this year and I strongly urge anyone who doesn’t want the scheme, just as much as those who do, to make sure that they have their say in the questionnaire.”
The proposal will be heard at Brighton and Hove City Council’s environment cabinet member meeting on March 25.
This discussion will cover a large area for residents to consider displacement and those experiencing parking difficulties such as residents near schools and other parking hotspots.
The results of the discussion will be reported to the Environment Cabinet Member where a decision will be made in late 2010 on whether to proceed to the final stage. If a scheme is approved the aim would be to have this operational by summer 2011.
Initial surveys to see what residents wanted were sent out to all households in Autumn last year and then followed up with two community consultations. Nearly 3,000 households, or one in three, responded.
- 70% said parking problems were regularly or sometimes experienced in their street
- 25% of streets said that pavement parking regularly occurred
- Over 80% of respondents have one car or less
- Nearly 90% of streets said they experience visitor parking regularly or sometimes in their street
- Over 50% of the streets experience commuter parking regularly or sometimes
- 60% of streets regularly or sometimes experience vehicles left for 2-3 weeks or more
The council is also proposing a review of the adjacent parking zones Area U (St Luke’s) and Area C (Queen’s Park), asking residents for their views on the current operation of their schemes including the time and days of operation.
The results of the consultation for all three locations will be considered in autumn this year.
If Councillor Theobald is willling to look at a parking scheme in Hanover/Elm Grove, why does he rule one out for the Wish Park area in Hove, where the problem is just as bad?
This is only a problem because the council have operated a divide and rule policy whereby they force traffic into areas by neighbouring restrictions then offer to fleece us for another permit ‘solution’.
The visitors have paid their road tax like everyone else – it is their road too.
Everyone with a car is a visitor somewhere when they move it – it should all be free where it isn’t dangerous (and banned where it is).
In principle I don’t mind the permit parking in our area, it’s become very difficult to park near our house due to over crowded streets from commuters and students (who seem to have about four cars pers household) Also it will get rid of the travellers who are quite frankly a pest. I just hope that the council don’t over subscribe streets, Should be one car per house hold
This is nonsense – we pay road tax and council tax and the they find another way of taking more money from us. Making us pay to park will ONLY make money. It will resolve nothing.
Make public transport affordable – for god sake make Hanover accessible by pubic transport – have small hopper buses. Make car parks council run.
We also need to start a campaign to make the residents parking permits (if they have to be introduced) free.
Any opposition to that would show the council’s true motivation.
Excellent. About time. the area has become over-congested and potentially dangerous.
The scheme, as in other areas, should provide needy parking for residents and discourage the area becoming a dumping ground for certain businesses, other establishments and dumped/traveller vehicles.
The token fee of £108 equates to just 30p/day. fantastic value.
bring it on!
I live in a street off Elm Grove with 60 house with only room for 30 cars where will the other 30 car park every house has a car? At the moment we have parking on both sides of the street.
Introducing residential parking is just another way the council will be making money from the residence of Hanover. Why should we have to pay to park outside our own homes??
Although, introducing this will hopefully resolve the problems of overcrowding and travellers, the residence will suffer. Those who own their homes in the area should be given one free permit per household to park in the area, and if they require additional permits or dont own their properties to be charged a fee. This will be fair for the homeowners and help minimise the problems of overcrowding.
The ‘solution’ in my street appears to be to halve the number of parking spaces by allowing parking on one side of the road only. The present situation – although not ideal – is preferable by far.
How anyone could propose charging residents for the privilege of having parking reduced by 50% is beyond me. The original questionnaire by which the (unquantified) ‘problems’ were identified had a response rate of 33%. It’s time for everyone to become involved in this process.
This is just another tax on brighton residents to park in their own streets.
There are somewhere in the region of 3700 households affected by this current scheme which equates to a healthy £400,000 for brighton council. This doesn’t even account for the maximum of 50 visitor permits per year that we may purchase on top of the initial fee for an additional £2 each (So another potential £100 per household) which could possibly add another 3 or 4 hundred thousand pounds onto the already huge sum. This also doesn’t account for the money taken from all the proposed parking meters they plan to install in our streets.
How Brighton Council can have the audacity to say that this is a non profit making parking scheme is totally beyond me.
OK, yes the parking is a little frustrating in the hanover area at times, but this current proposal is so riddled with financial agenda that I would have to say that I am vehemently opposed to it.I fear that even a scheme of this design with free resident permits would still not solve the current parking issue.
WE MUST STOP THIS FROM GOING AHEAD
Something that is not made clear in the supporting documentation is that the student population will have an equal right to apply for a residents permit with no priority given to tax paying residents when the permits are allocated.
When you consider that a “household” is not defined as one house/building but can mean multiple households in the same building, as in the case of some of the larger houses that have been effectively chopped into seperate studio flats for the student populace. This equates to a lot of possible valid applications that could result in permanent residents not getting a permit while the student neighbours do.
How can this possibly be fair in an area where the tax paying residents are likely in the minority these days.
Start writing to the council and be sure to fill out your comments in the questionnaire or we are all likely to get shafted.
The ‘consultation/vote’ should be for all the car owners in the area NOT all the houses.
If you have 3 car owners in a house they each need a say/permit.
If you have a householder with no car why should they get a vote at all? The roads aren’t paid for by the council tax they are (massively over-) paid for by road and petrol tax.
Why the council should get any of this money is beyond me?
Wait till enough people don’t have cars (and pay their related transport taxes) and see what happens to the highly subsidised bus/rail system. Coucil/income tax will have to go up or the fares will.
I agree that property owners should be given 1 free permit per household with the option to pay for others(cars are taxed and insured separately petrol is taxed so each car will cost the owner and be a disincentive in itself)or alternatively a free carclub membership for those that don’t wish to take up a permit will encourage low users to forego there own car. I don’t think student multiple households should be issued with permits as they are already causing too much anti social feeling in the area with a lot of noise and rubbish and the community spirit is being eroded.When I chose to move into the area 19 years parking was a big factor in my decision and not a problem in my street as most of the houses were family occupied now as each house is sold a student letting board goes up..and so it goes on as families would be put off buying/living next to a student household. If students/short term residents were not given permits I feel our community and parking issues will be the better for it!
This issue clearly isn’t going to solve itself so I’ve started a petition against the parking scheme.
Please sign it and cut and paste the link into an email and send it to as many friends and local residents as you can.
We need to let the council know that this scheme is not very popular and a petition by local residents is a clear and succinct voice in stopping this.
Online petition – Review Hanover and Elm Grove Area Residents’ Parking Scheme
Yes, one permit per household. But don’t any of you have visitors? A £2 permit lets someone park all day, but what about friends that pop in to say hi, or to drop off or pick up children. DO you live out of the area and want to pop to Queen’s park with your children for 20 minutes? Not possible.
And many small families share cars to keep costs down, this too wouldn’t be possible if you share with someone from a different area.
My experience of visitor’s permits is that the council will give you a £75 fine if the ticket slips down the dashboard by 3mm, or is placed on the wrong side of the dashboard by 10mm. They are NOT trying to make life easier for residents and their visitors, they are out to get money from you. So far down in Kemptown my guests have racked up £225 worth of fines in 2 weeks whilst having valid visitors’ permits.
And what about pubs and local businesses that rely on quick passing trade? I’d certainly stop coming to businesses in Hanover for my food, wine, garage services, newspapers, meat, after-work pint. I’ve stopped popping off for a pint in many other parts of the town, its not worth the hassle.
So yes, maybe minor parking problems would be eased, but at considerable expense and frustration to everyday life, particularly if you have young children. Its a real tax on those of us with young families.
I’ve had experience of council consultations before, I’ve been on several panels. They are not really consulting for your opinion, they are attempting to justify revenue generating decisions which have already been made.
Sorry to go on. 😉
Modifying some streets to offer parking on one side only, will effectively halve the number of parking spaces available. So if you have a problem parking at 7pm, its going to get a lot worse.
The street may be widened but all this will do is to increase the speed of vehicles using the side streets as rat runs. The council have done nothing about this despite years of protestations from locals.
Does anyone know who’s running the official protest movement on this?
Ok, I’m starting to see the negatives in this scheme now, thanks to the other comments here. I thought the council would restrict the scheme to to familys and at nosttwo houses per house hold, we live on Seville street and we suffer from people from other overcrowded street dumping thier vehicals for weeks on end, I can see this going to get worse under the scheme and my wife and child will struggle to park close to our house which defeats the objective. I think Tim has the right idea with the petition, , why don’t we put together an action group, I would be up for contributing, and am fairly confidant I can get the council guys responsible along! my email is simoncrabb@lutinebell.com if any one is interested.
I counted the parking spaces being removed under the scheme in Hanover and its over 600 parking spaces. (I walked all the streets). When I asked the council reps at the exhibition how residents would have better parking under the scheme if 600 spaces are being removed they were unable to comment. Also, they said the mention in their leaflet about us having better parking was not based on our scheme but had been seen in outher parking schemes that were implemented. The council misled people into thinking the proposed scheme will actually make parking better. Its highly doubtful that all residents will get a parking permit for one car and less likely they will find a parking space near their own street. Im awaiting the council to provide me with any facts. They have quoted weeks to provide me with them.
The Elm Grove Residents Action Group is against the parking scheme. They were previously consulted on an earlier scheme and rejected it. On this scheme they were excluded from participating in the planning by the council.
email: elmgroveresidents@hotmail.co.uk
We want a scheme that works for the community. Not one that will close our shops and stop us parking duringthe day and night.
I’d like some sort of action to roll back the existing RP schemes that are driving parking into Hanover. Does anyone know how to get a ‘consultation’ to remove schemes?
Otherwise this is just becoming a war of attrition.
A campaign to remove any charge (at all) for the RP scheme across all of Brighton and Hove would be another line of attack.
Also how much are the consultants being paid out of our pockets? Try googling “Mott MacDonald lesotho”.
I have also requested the present number of parking spaces and the proposed number. This information is not readily available from the council. I can’t help but think this shows a lack of planning.
The council are underhand and devious and will extract money from us left right and centre. Absolute NO to parking permits, our road has many free spaces day and night with no double parking so why make us pay? It is an utter disgrace that they should even suggest it. Have they even driven here to conduct research-I think not!
I agree with Simon and Tim and I signed the petition. It will be a nightmare to come home with 2 little children asleep in the car and having nowhere to park near the house. It is annoying that some people leave their vehicles parked in front of your house for days, but I still manage to find a parking space within 100m from my house even if I come home after 8pm. I don’t think this would happen with this scheme. We have two cars in our household and my husband always comes home late in the evening and this scheme is definitely not going to help us at all. We pay Council Tax, Road Tax and now this.
Residents parking schemes are not the solution! Brighton needs affordable multi storey or underground parking facilities for commutors. I already pay a HUGE ammount each year parking allover the city, I donotwant topay in my own street as well for goodness sake. I feel this entire approach to parking is wrong and as for the consultation process, what a total shambles. Brighton and Hove Council please STOP your schemes and START AFRESH with the whole concept of provision.
I agree resident parking schemes are not the solution. They will only take away parking space and push overcrowding to a different area, making residents have to park further and further from their houses.
I am shocked to hear people say the parking situation in Hanover is bad. It’s not that bad. It’s certainly not bad at the top of Hanover near Queens Park where I live. I previously lived in the Seven Dials area where there was a permit scheme and parking here was far worse. We always have a ten minute walk from where we could park out car and our house. In comparison parking in Hanover is a doddle.
The main problem (if any) is the overspill from Amex, if their employees had adequate parking Hanover wouldn’t have an issue at all.
I have lived in john street for 3 years and I never encountered any problem parking my car in this area.
This is another council strategy for easy money making.
I used to live in seven dials area and many of the neighbors fought against the parking scheme but the council ignored everything and went ahead with their decision;
The council claimed that the former Children hospital was the cause of visiting parking. 3 years after the introduction of the scheme the hospital was closed down, the council knew about this but kept it very quiet;
In seven dials initially the pay and display bays only cost £1 per hour and 50 visitor tickets a year, now it cost £3 per hour pay and display and residents only get 20 visitor tickets a year. SHOCKING;;
If the council really want to solve the problem of visiting and “AMEX” commuting parking why they don`t give free parking permits for residents and pay and display for everyone else.
John street is in an appalling state with many holes, uneven levels and humps making it very dangerous to drive through, at no point the council has mentioned anything about repairing the roads.
IF IS THERE ANY GROUP OF PEOPLE GETTING TOGETHER OR WANT TO APPEAL AGAINST THE PARKING SCHEME PLEASE CONTACT ME acortes2748@hotmail.com or mobil 07801073882
Hi All
As a tradesman who works in Brighton and Hove. I have to pay for a traders permit that costs £160 every 3 months but it does enable me to park on residents parking bays and meters. Although I do feel it is an additional tax it does enable me to park in most places in Brighton close to where I am working. Hanover unfortunately as you know is impossible and I along with many other tradesmen have stopped working in the area as it is impossible to park anywhere close to the customer.
Unfortunately Hanover needs restricted parking as well as the roads being made one way. In parts of Hove some roads have restricted parking for a few hours in the morning and afternoon which stops the commuters parking.
Residents parking permits together with traders permits should be the cost of how much it costs to produce them. Luckily I do not live in a restricted area and would never move to one without off road parking.
People of Brighton and Hove one simple move get together and elect your own councillors to change things or all stop paying your rates. The French wouldn’t accept it, they would get together and do something about. But we are English and we will always tip our cloth caps and say there’s nothing one can do, but there is people power does work. How about getting together and marching through the town demanding change I am up for it. Who will join me