More than 10,000 homes in Brighton and Hove are about to be asked for views on introducing residents’ parking into their areas, including the city centre’s ‘last free car park’.
Questionnaires will be sent out this week to about 8,000 homes in Hanover and Elm Grove, plus Craven Vale, asking if people want controlled parking, and if so over what time periods.
The forms will also show detailed maps of how a scheme would work. Residents will be asked whether they want any restrictions to operate all day or for limited hours. And they can say whether they would prefer schemes to operate Monday to Friday or Monday to Sunday. Any comments can also be added to survey forms.
Residents can also vote online, using a link given in the hard copy consultation form, or via the council’s online consultation portal.
However, the council says it will only be accepting one view from a household and unless that’s clear one way or the other there’s a likelihood it won’t be counted. It will also be checking for multiple entries from single sources, both electronically or on paper.
Four hundred homes in streets near Queen’s Park, Zone U, are also being asked if they want to change their current part-time restrictions to full-time. This follows a petition from residents complaining that it was difficult to park because streets were filling with non-residents’ cars outside two restricted periods, which end at 3pm.
In West Hove residents are being asked a second time if they want a parking scheme. They rejected one in 2013 except for a small section near Wish Park, which went ahead. Now residents in areas that turned the scheme down are asking the council to revive the idea as parking problems are increasing. Around 2,400 homes will get letters.
Consultation for Craven Vale, Area U and Hanover and Elm Grove starts on Thursday December 1. Information and forms are being posted out to homes, with a return deadline of January 13. West Hove is likely to go out shortly afterwards, with the same return date.
All consultations will include an option to reject any changes to parking controls. Results of the consultations will be reported to the environment committee on 14th March 2017.
Chair of the environment committee Cllr Gill Mitchell said: “As always we’re being guided by residents rather than imposing anything. Parking restrictions can reduce traffic and make areas more pleasant and safe, but ultimately it’s up to those who live there.”
More information about parking consultations, public exhibitions and how to give feedback is on the council website www.brighton-hove.gov.uk
Parking in Neville Road and Court Farm Road Hove needs to be sorted it’s ridiculous there are cars parking on the pavement causing danger for passing traffic and pedestrians.
A group of Hanover residents have launched a website to help encourage their neighbours to vote for a residents’ parking scheme in the upcoming consultation on a Controlled Parking Zone for the area. The website’s motto is “tired of living in a car park” and the people behind it say it’s important for everyone to take part in the consultation.
Around Hanover most journeys are made on foot and nearly half of the households don’t even have a car. This consultation is about how we all share our streets, not just about car parking – we urge all households to talk to each other and their neighbours before voting
The council’s proposals are perfect – we are disappointed that they have not listened to the local community’s requests for street improvements like dropped kerbs and more trees to be designed into the scheme. We hope people will use the opportunity of the consultation this December to make that point strongly to the council and get some changes agreed at the Transport Committee meeting in March.
More details can be found on the Hanover Streets for People website: http://www.streets4people.wordpress.com.
Quite agree.
This is an opportunity for the local community to make the street scene much more pleasant and to aid residents through provision of cycle parking, better locations for large bins, planters and street trees and wheelchair users by installing dropped curbs at every junction.
I am sure that these would be popular measures and would be paid for by the scheme, but where is our Labour administration on this? Why are they doing such a poor job?
say no to pay to park outside your own house!
Please say no to controlled parking in Hanover. The main issue for my house, and there must be many others in the same position, is that there is no guarantee of a second permit per household. My housemate and I a both self employed and NEED a vehicle each. There’s no way around it, if we couldn’t park here, we would have to move away from a life we’ve established for ourselves here at great expense, upheaval and stress because as our situation stands it’s going to be very difficult to find somewhere else to fulfil all our needs. An argument for the scheme suggests it is to guarantee residents a space to combat the struggle of spending ages finding one and parking far away occasionally, well a huge reduction in spaces is simply NOT going to achieve that. People will face the same parking problem whilst this time paying for the privilege. Don’t forget, as the council leaflet admits itself, the problem is due to the parking schemes in surrounding areas in the first place. The council have created a problem and expect us to pay for it. Walk around queen’s park, there’s loads of houses with driveways and yet there’s controlled parking bays with hardly and cars in! I can’t even afford yet another tax on my life, I already pay my road tax to park on the road. The visitor’s permit scheme is unbelievable. It effectively is restricting our freedom, telling us how many visits we’re allowed per year. We all work very hard for our livings, to have freedom and to pay for a house with which we can do as we please and now all of a sudden I have to share 50 visits with my housemate every year? So I’m allowed a visitor for one day less than once every other week. Well no, that’s simply not on! What about those with partner’s who visit regularly or close friends and family that stay a lot? This will affect people’s relationships and the way they live their lives .As for room on the pavements for pedestrians to pass properly, I feel that in general there is plenty of space to get through with the exception of a few spots or stupid parking, so yes maybe a few of spots should be dealt with and tickets issued for crap parking. For residents without cars who feel that the roads would also look nicer without as many cars on, maybe they would, but is that really as important an issue as other people not actually being able to live here and uproot their entire life? As people struggling to pay the bills being given another annual expense to not even get a space anyway? To having the council dictate how many times you’re allowed to have friends and family visit you? I’ve heard people say they want the roads for the community back. I’m sorry but Brighton has an abundance of parks and other areas for community gatherings, the curb isn’t the place to be socialising anyway.
It would be useful to see a breakdown of the Council’s running costs to maintain and monitor an area’s parking scheme. I live in Queens Park area where they are also considering a scheme. I do have sympathy for Hanover residents as your streets are narrow and it is always choca block. I also, however, agree with the comment on here regarding the ongoing cost to the residents. I don’t understand how after initial set up costs, how the monitoring of the scheme by a traffic warden warrants £120 p.a. from EVERY resident household EVERY year! If it’s about 17,000 residents,that’s £2,040,000 EVERY year for the council! They say they are doing because it is requested by residents – then why do we have to fork out so much? The average traffic warden salary in UK is £18,967. To monitor an area the size of Hanover would surely not need more wardens than roughly four in my mind. So it doesn’t take a genius to do the maths and see the council are benefiting from our misery enormously. Which incidentally, a lot of people feel, was created by them in the first place. So my question is, why don’t the residents not only fight for parking restrictions but also a sense of fairness. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be ripped off or be hood winked by the council supposedly ‘doing us a favour’.
Lastly my other issue, whilst talking about fairness, is what happens to essential workers in these areas. Such as teachers. The school I work in, also in Queens Park area, have staff talking about leaving as they travel in from outside Brighton. They already leave home at the crack of dawn when travelling by car,so would suffer having to leave almost an hour earlier to travel by bus! People who have cars generally need their cars. Life requires it sometimes, whether the council like to think of car as a dirty word or not. I live near enough to town, seafront and downs to walk just about everywhere, but there are still times I need my car. One of the staff I work with travels in far and early to open up the school office. She then has to drive to Woodingdean to visit her elderly mum and then return to the completely other side of Brighton and beyond. Life is never black and white. Then all around the school in the day they have a parking scheme which ends just there. So everyone parks beyond this (where I live) and this street is completely EMPTY all day! Is this a sensible scheme. Why can’t the council issue free or low cost all day vouchers for school staff only for the school side of these roads? They will be gone by the time residents return home. The school will not be jepodised or lose good staff or caused any hassle to residents (who generally park on the housing side of the road anyway). One size doesn’t fit all. The council need to be much more flexible, fair and caring.