The council should weigh up not just the income and benefits from events held in public spaces, but the costs and “disbenefits”, a committee member said.
The matter merited scrutiny, according to community and voluntary sector rep Mark Strong, speaking at a Brighton and Hove City Council committee meeting.
Mr Strong cited a conversation some years ago with the former boss of Brighton and Hove Buses, Roger French about the loss of income resulting from road closures.
Mr Strong told the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee: “Residents do feel that, while events are great, they also bring lots of disbenefits, especially if you live near the seafront.
“You get impacts with bus services cut off. You can’t walk along the seafront. They’re never, it seems, weighted up.
“It just seems sometimes that one event is good, lots of events is better and loads of events is even better.
“Sometimes we might want to think about getting quality not quantity.”
Labour councillor Amanda Evans, who chairs the committee, agreed that outside events were an issue that needs scrutiny.
At Hove Town Hall on Tuesday (23 July), Labour councillor Mitchie Alexander, said that she had spoken with the head of outdoor events Ian Baird about concerns.
Councillor Alexander, the acting cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism, said: “This is high up on their agenda, ensuring that events can happen in a sustainable way and they don’t upset residents.
“In the past there has been a learning curve when events have happened and people have been upset by what is left of the park afterwards.
“So it is important that events work for everybody and the residents living near by.”
It is unforgivable that this sort of cost benefit analysis, with consequences and sustainability to the fore, has not been just normal practice already!
There clearly is a CBA done as in does the fee from the event organiser fully cover the councils costs.
Organisers clearly do the same for their side and if they weren’t making money they wouldn’t run them year after year.
Surveys and other work are clearly done after large events that identify the wider economic benefits to the city such as spend in bars, shops, restaurants and hotels. The Albion have done such work not only from when they moved to the premiership but also started playing in Europe.
But what isn’t done is identify some of the social costs when roads and bus routes etc get closed meaning people can’t easily get to work or visit families. But some of those costs are hard to pin down. What value do you place on a resident not being able to use the beach for a day for example? What are the costs to residents when roads are closed for a march and they can’t go shopping.
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Weren’t you the selfish greedy boomer who killed 500 family homes in the Brighton gasworks?
What the hell is wrong with your generation?
We need to start means testing your state pension, I don’t go to work every day to fund you having too much time on your hands.
Oh Mark, it’s not killed, not is it going to be 500, nor family homes.
Please sign and share Save our Green Spaces e petition which covers this topic . Thank you
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Derek, please stop copying and pasting. It’s tiresome.
So the costs will rise then……………………………………………
Coldean gets cut off twice a year, the residents have asked for change but nothing gets done.
Please sign and share the Save our Green spaces petition which covers this topic
Thank you
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Ditto.
Sadly, cost-benefit analysis is a term unknown in Hove Town Hall.
Is this the same Mark Strong who is a professional transport planner and supported the previous Green Party led council in introducing cycle lanes, and failed to become a Green Party councillor in Queens Park last year?
If so it’s quite hypocritical when he questions the additional social costs of events, but the council ignored knock on costs of transport congestion from removing road capacity for bikes.
Far from ignoring the impact on motor traffic, the council routinely overstates it, which is why we have such poor and minimal cycling infrastructure and such substantial car dominance.
Bearing in mind that congestion is caused by too many motor vehicles in a given space, isn‘t it up to car ppl to make the calculation on their impact on others every time they get behind the wheel? If they ar not going to think of others, congestion charging is a good way to encourage them
And charging cyclists for dedicated infrastructure – especially when they refuse to use it preferring using pavements instead 😉
Walking along Marine Parade this afternoon, within ten minutes, cyclists passed me on the pavement. I had to quickly dodge one coming at me at fast speed. I hate to think what would would have happened if I was frail or disabled. Cyclists moan and groan about motorists but they themselves are just as much of a nuisance to pedestrians.
Hove Guy, a car driver was an idiot yesterday. What’s your point?
I like hairy armpits
Parks are for the public. Not for private profit
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And so are the streets and the beaches, but the council ignore that. It won’t be long before visitors will have to pay to enter Brighton & Hove.
That wouldn’t be a bad thing if it kept all the Croydon lowlifes away.
Sign the Save our Green Spaces e petition, on the council website , which covers this and many other topics dealing with outdoor events
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=933&RPID=86972591&HPID=86972591
Events team routinely put profits over people. They ignore issues of the unsuitability of spaces such as Valley’Gardens’ which is just a strip of public land in the heart of a residential area. Yet they run live and recorded music events, some 6pm – 2am for a month solid, and this year followed it with the Fan Zone with loud music and flashing screens from 12 noon to 10pm for a month ! It was advertised as a month long music festival in a Central Park!
Events are great – on the hard standing events space area.
2-3 day music events fine, then more peaceful all day and early evening family events or craft and food festivals fine.
But paywalled month long loud music events that exclude residents, deliver huge profits to private companies (majority not Brighton) detract from the profits of local businesses; deliver a small £ sum to BHCC nothing to the area disrupted , leave residents, children and elderly tired and mentally stressed and cause huge damage to our ground rendering them unusable for the rest of summer, is just senseless, selfish and soulless !
Insult to injury- we paid for it to be created; we get locked out, we pay for it to be repaired!
It has to stop !
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So, you’d be happy, by your own words, if Brighton council was paid more from events?
Absolutely agree. Events like the Kemptown Village Party cause large area of Kemptown to close and residents generally have grown to hate this event. Just cut it back to 1 day.
And charging cyclists for dedicated infrastructure – especially when they refuse to use it preferring using pavements instead 😉
And they even cycle on the pavement along Hove seafront, in spite of the many cycle lanes.
Is there an echo in here?
The cost/benefit analysis is quite hard to assess, partly because the spend per head at the event itself is one thing, but we can’t always know what the knock-on effect is for other businesses in the area.
What we do know is that events like the Pride Village Party are consistently said to provide an annual windfall of money which keeps businesses in the area open for the rest of the year.
We also know that all hotels and B’n’Bs get booked up on Pride weekend like no other.
Pride is only one example – and an event where the organisers themselves made a loss last year, because of the rainy weather. But the city businesses still made a huge amount of money from it, and it’s the Pride organisers who pay for the street clean up afterwards.
So the trade off here is between income for city businesses and the extra jobs provided for us locals, versus a few days of disruption for residents.
For sure the city might be quieter and cleaner if we ring fenced our borders and closed off the beach on hot days, and if the pubs were all shut down in the evenings. But then Brighton wouldn’t be Brighton.
I would argue that it’s these annual events that have stopped the city going into the same decline you see in many other seaside resorts.
Every hotel and B and B is booked up in August regardless. This is the highest season month in the UK. Many businesses have to close down for Pride so yes bars and gay clubs do well but that’s it.
Brighton Starfish, that’s not quite correct.
The hotels for Pride weekend are often booked a year in advance, and there are premium prices for that weekend. This demand is even true for places which are out of town – such as the YHA youth hostel on Truleigh Hill, behind Shoreham. So it;s a bumper weekend that helps lots of businesses.
Plus the restaurants and shops do well out of Pride week, and not just the bars.
For sure some resident don’t like the three day party, but others are happy with it.
It certainly never bothered me when my own flat was within the street party area.
Not against events in fact the opposite but there has to be a tangible benefits for the local community
I think there are very clear benefits to the community. The income generated, for example, helps to fund the EDB, which goes directly into community projects and chosen by the community, and is a very clear example of events being a benefit to the community.
Sadly, havibg spent a number of years trying to get people to realise that the Pride event causes complete and utter chaos to the city. Living opposite Preston Park means approximately 12 days of “movements” in the park with setting up of the event and breaking down. The interim time is filled with forklifts, lights, generators and restrictions to use of the green space. The weekend of the event means no sleep for three nights. I gave up long ago and simply go away for the weekend to escape being sleep deprived and not being able to use my vehicle because the road is closed. The knock-on effects have cost me personally with loss of earnings (unable to get to and from work for a weekend). The call for CBA should also include the overwhelming calls from local residents to calm the who thing down. We had NINE events in a row last year in the park, some of them pretty big and disruptive. Yes its an “event space”, but it also borders the homes of an awful lot of people who are fed up of the whole thing, yet have been told we have it extended to TWO WEEKS from next year! Some consultation that was……… I also pity the poor people of the St.James’s area who live cheek-by-jowel with the event. Despite coming across as caring about residents, Ian Baird seems to care about nothing other than having as many events as possible in the city and quite frankly, the residents will just have to out up with it. Somebody ask how much the council actually makes from the Pride event. The answer will shock you……..
Sign the Save our Green Spaces e petition, on the council website , which covers this and many other topics dealing with outdoor events
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=933&RPID=86972591&HPID=86972591
Delboy, the ceaseless copy/pasta suggests you should microwave your keyboard.
need to get 1250 signatures
No Del, you really don’t.
They have started closing Preston Park today (26th July), for the event on 3-4th August. They will clear the site by 6th August. So yes, 12 days. In 2025 it will be 19 days, as the event will be over 2 weekends. I disagree that it is an event space. It is a park. The Peoples’ Park to be precise.
No one is stopping you going to pride, it’s everyone’s park, not just for breeders.
your aggression and unbridled hate on this page is very disturbing
I agree with Miles. It’s been a minute since I’ve read your particular syntax, Mark. I’d forgotten how vitriol it is.
Justin doesn’t like to see other people enjoying themselves.
Sign the petition Save our Green Spaces
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=933&RPID=86985880&HPID=86985880
I think that there are just too many of these events now. Some need dropping and others scaling back. We should also consider holding events further away from residents!
Could we move some residents further away from the events?
Ha, you joke – some residents have been known to complain about the same event for years in end, and there’s space for the discussion why don’t they move elsewhere? I suspect that would be quite the phantasmagoria.
Absolutely a fair opinion, some dedicated event spaces would be a good start to addressing some of the concerns that some people hold.
Thats covered in the petition
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=933&RPID=86985880&HPID=86985880
Is it the petition you’re astroturfing all over t’Interwebs?
Cancel pride, that will be a start. Or maybe it could move to Black Rock! Brilliant idea.
I believe that is on the table already to be fair regarding Black Rocks.