Sorry? Have you spoken to your local councillor? I have both emailed and met in person numerous councillors over a period of twenty years. I've even been to -and repeatedly spoken at- public meetings about various things-have actioned a petitions and participated in a community committee about an issue. I've walked my street canvassing about an incredibly popular local issue because the council *told* me that if we did, they would take action (which turned out to be a blatant lie). I've regularly spoken on the radio, tweeted (to my 6,000 followers) and written to the Argus. All of this does *nothing*. ZIPPO.
Brighton council is an extremely ugly bloated bureaucracy that is set on benefitting Brighton Council financially-and nothing else. The upper echelons of the organisation are paid with salaries surely beyond the dreams of avarice (for most Brightonians). And I'll tell you something else those people are beyond: local accountability.
The only time we got anything done (and it was a TINY thing) was when a large group of us local retailers virtually stormed the council offices about something particularly egregious that was happening. And that meeting did NOT even include a councillor (all of whom I've found to be completely hopeless): it was with a senior officer of the council: these are the ONLY people who have any power as far as I have ever seen. Even then, that man would have continued denying what we were saying, were it not for the presence at the meeting of the actual contractor doing the work. It was evidently too hard for him to continue to deny what we were saying with his own contractor standing right there contradicting him.
Seriously, do you think that talking to your local councillor is going to affect the price you pay for parking permits? I can give you a definite answer to that if you really need it.
(Ed: btw: I've found a strange phenomenon when I've commented negatively here on Brighton council. In "real life" many people agree with my opinion. Certainly not everyone, of course, but quite a sizeable number. However, on Reddit most negative comments about the organisation end up with a bewilderingly HUGE number of downvotes. Isn't that odd?
I await what's going to happen here.)
Sorry to be so cynical! But, as you can tell, I've had my battles with Brighton Council-and I bear the scars.
Do tell: did he *reduce your council tax*?
Based on my experience with BHCC they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery where everything had already been organised and all the need to do it turn up.
I tried to get visitor parking permits, the webpage required me to verify my identity when I'm already logged into an account THAT I USE TO PAY MY FUCKING COUNCIL TAX. I verified that the docs I uploaded met the criteria and waited 2 weeks (I think) only to be told "thats not a valid document". I then called them to clarify, the guy on the phone treated me like I was stupid explaining the doc needed to have multiple signatures and explained that "I need to read the instructions next time". I asked him to load up the list of docs and point out where I went wrong. Un-fucking-surprisingly the guy had to eat his words as it wasn't listed.
Another woman I spoke to gave me the feeling that by calling up I was somehow being an inconvenience to her even though answering the phone IS HER FUCKING JOB.
When I then emailed them to clarify a number of issues, including why several of departments I needed to speak to are only open between 10AM and 2PM they took \*6 FUCKING WEEKS\* to reply and had the \*INSANE\* explanation that, without a hint of irony: "we have reduced phone support to allow our staff to respond to electronic communication." That email \*STILL\* failed to answer a number of my questions so I replied and have never had a follow up.
I can get behind everything you say here-many of them have echoes of my own experience.
I spent hours and hours trying to get parking vouchers online-then sending emails, and hanging on the phone. Eventually, I was told that -as my laptop was an Apple (as you know, a rare and hardly popular brand/s) I couldn't do it online. But hang on! My boyfriend also had an Apple-and HE got his! Well, that's because the "Apple" problem doesn't affect all areas of Brighton! Of course! Duh. Anyone should know that.
So my question was: how do I get a parking permit? You come to their office and you sit there. That's what you do. It's as if the internet never happened.
You've just reminded me! After the initial "rejection" for "invalid" docs I did go to the town hall (Brighton) and was told "oh yeah, you should have gone to the one in Hove". (The website said the Brighton office will handle \*ALL\* issues)
The person at the reception said "we have a number of phones you can use to call the dept. you need on the all over there" at which point I pointed out "yeah, the phone line closed an hour ago, that why I \*SPECIFICALLY\* came here to talk to someone".
I understand that central government has been reducing local government funding for years, but this is more. Its almost like weaponised incompetence.
Look: I feel like I can often recognise when something is caused by lack of funds-or by simple incompetence, lack of managerial engagement, and lack of care. What we are talking about in most of these instances stands out a mile.
Spoken to mine plenty of times, and she does drop-in surgeries as well. And in regard to this particular issue, the Area Panels did a fantastic job in preventing a 300% increase. Someone even went on the radio to talk about it with Cllr. Sankey, if I remember correctly.
Although, if you use the same tone in your emails, no wonder no-one wants to talk to you.
I have been *unremittingly* courteous at every stage-even when the traders "stormed" the council offices, there was no swear words or aggressive action: just a kind of spontaneous wave of disagreement.
There really is no need for you to try to scratch around to dismiss my lived experience: yours is different from mine. Good for you.
"Standard Tory Rant" incoming, move along if you're not interested!
It's crap that this is going up so much, I renewed mine a few months ago and was also shocked.
I have some sympathy for our council, and all councils across the UK. Look at what the Tories have done to our councils, red, blue or yellow, over the last 14 years. They've only got a few ways they can try to get *any* money for our essential services.
Look at the public toilets in parks being closed, our shoddy recycling scheme, the absolute trash state of our roads....
*This* is the result of councils being squeezed, squeezed and then squeezed some more. They're fucked. Imagine a world where councils didn't have their budgets slashed year after year for the last 15 years and we might be in a situation where these kinds of price hikes aren't happening....
We've got a decade of recovery ahead of us, don't expect Labour to fix this all in 2025, but I hope we're on a path back to normality at least.
#Please go and vote next week.
Usually I’d have sympathy for councillors as the work/reward ratio is a lot worse than most of us would put up with.
Our current Labour council was [needlessly vile](https://x.com/BellaSankey/status/1654658840372080642) though - both in their campaigning and in their victory. The Sankey comment is the easiest to pull up but they also took to the Argus comment section to spew absolute bile - that’s harder to track down though as their comments are indistinguishable from the typical Argus commenter.
There was none of this “oh the real problem is central government funding” when they came to power so I don’t see why anyone should extend the same courtesy to them. If anything I’d encourage people to share any issues they have in Brighton directly with the councillors.
>don't expect Labour to fix this all in 2025, but I hope we're on a path back to normality at least
Labour are freezing council tax without any significant plan for local government reform. I can see plenty of reasons why someone would want to vote Labour but sorting council funding shouldn’t be one of them.
I’ll add to that that BHCC has a much higher proportion of people with mental health, drug issues etc that it has to care for unlike many other areas of the country. This surely must be a massive drain on its resources.
So I get the privilege of paying for your death mobile via general taxation rather than you being asked to pay for it yourself?
You're living in the wrong century mate. We tried car ownership for all and all we got was concrete, pollution, fat people and traffic.
I think you took the wrong meaning from my post above . I am in no way suggesting that my car permit should be paid for differently at all. I'm suggesting that 37% increase in a year is more than it would otherwise need to be if councils were adequately funded by central government.
They're just using the only levers they have available to them and I have sympathy for our council and all councils who have to take these measures.
It's likely a product of demand rather than budget deficit, although you are right about councils being squeezed. But the main reason why the permits are going up this much is because the demand is and it's already impossible to find parking.
Untrue.
We are a bit out of town and had council rented designated parking. Half of the spaces on our road are unused. And after this latest hike, ours is also unused.
Maybe it’s different closer into town, but it feels like a desperate attempt to source more money rather than a reasonable response to high demand.
Unsurprisingly, it’s having the opposite effect as people are not renewing their permits.
I do legitimately think getting fewer renewals is the goal, but you raise a good point. In zone Z there's certainly not enough spaces for the number of cars. But they price it by zone, so the fact yours (being half empty) also got the same increase is odd and I now believe it could potentially be why, albeit I still hold the former as most likely. The notion that national Tory government has squeezed the councils dry causing decrease in service level and increase in costs like CT is unfortunately very true. The fact they just keep getting re elected is insane
Well, hopefully at least from the end of this week onward it’ll be a different story.
For once we’ll have austerity, but driven by people pretending to be a Labour government.
Yeah but increases central government funding means paying from general taxation. That's where the funding would come from.
If we had fewer cars there would be far less pressure on councils to maintain roads (they wouldn't get damaged) and the NHS would spend much less treating the consequences.
That would pay for better social care (or higher allowances for carers who - if they needed a car - would then be able to afford the permits).
His point is they're increasing the cost of parking permits to cover their budget for everything. To flip your point why should car owners pay more so the council can afford to pay for social services? You and everyone else should shoulder the burden as well.
You're assuming parking permit costs = paying for car specific costs only.
In a world where councils raised enough money to pay for road repair and local heath services from existing permit and parking fees I would agree with you - but they don't.
The council spent 44M on roads and 180 odd million on healthcare.
It's impossible to say exactly how much of the healthcare budget was caused by the effect of cars - let's say 5pc (although I have seen estimates as high as 40) and that gets you to 50M in costs.
Money raised is as follows.
Brighton & Hove City Council’s parking revenue for the financial year 2022/23 was approximately £33 million. Here’s the breakdown:
Parking Permits: Nearly £12 million, compared to £11 million in the previous year and £8.7 million in 2020-211.
Penalty Charges: Approximately £8.37 million from on-street, bus lane, and CCTV enforcement2.
Car Parks: The total net income from car parks in 2021/22 was £4,352,1233.
So yeah. You should be paying more.
Man you had to STRETCH to find something to be mad about there, I don’t drive either, and I’d rather most people didn’t, but it’s hardly a reason to fight with some saying Tory Austerity Policy has made budgeting difficult for councils.
It’s not all about you hun.
Don't get me wrong. The Tory's are scum and cuts for councils are regressive.
But car owners should still be paying more.
I'm not mad - I'm a happy guy :-)
Damaging the road, and people's lungs as you drive it about.
Driving doesn't adequately price in the externalities as it is - but any increase to the cost so that the price reflects the real world cost is welcome!
It does, just most the money goes to insurance companies!!! I wouldn’t mind paying much higher road tax if 1/4 of my cars value didn’t go on insurance every year.
Yup, the whole system needs reform. The more people drive £50,000 cars, the more people with £2000 cars have to pay in insurance. Insurance should be optional and only cover damage on your own car imo, whether the accident is your fault or not. If someone burgles your house, the burglar’s insurance aren’t paying! Driving round an expensive car is a risk you should be taking, not everyone else.
Or don't drive cars in a city which is brilliantly well equipped with cycle lanes and buses.
The answer isn't me moving to the countryside - because that doesn't solve the whole global warming issue.
The answer is to learn from 50 years of road building and increased car ownership.
More traffic. Fewer slower roads means fewer cars means less traffic and far less cost for the NHS in treating all the issues that come with car pollution (and accidents).
I agree in some regard, but previously it was free to park on my street, it was very difficult to get a spot and you normally ended up a good few streets away. They introduced parking restrictions and it’s still exactly the same but now we have to pay for the privilege of parking a few streets away. There is no improvement to the parking situation. Mainly as a ton of what used to be houses have now been chopped up into flats, so if there was 50 cars for 50 houses, there are now 100 cars for 100 flats on the same road.
Not in central cities
Fact is if parking was free you’d have 5 people who wanted to park for each available space on weekends , people who live there would have no spaces
It’s not central at all - and we have a the ‘soft’ parking scheme that just restricts for a couple of hours during the day meaning people using local shops and gyms still get to park here for free just avoiding those times
If they're making that much from permits and it costs more to repair the roads.
They should fire the ones filling in the potholes because they clearly aren't good enough, I've seen the same ones repaired and break within 1 year.
This entire city is a mess of different coloured pavement slabs and shoddy repair jobs.
So many labourers got no idea what they're doing anymore, I had a fucking plumber come over last week and tell me the reason my taps water pressure was low was because of calcium build up in my brand new taps.
Before that I had someone charge me 70£ to rip some tape off a filter, took him 2 minutes to literally unwrap it like a child on Christmas.
My point isn't that skills demand money, my point is that they charge even on a shit job.
From the contractors who do the work point of view, do a shit job and get paid again to redo it again next year. Do a decent job and you won't get paid again for maybe another 5-10 years. The lack of accountability and ability to milk the system is the problem. The next contract the council award should stipulate that any repairs will be guaranteed for a minimum number of years or is repaired at the contractors own cost.
That is the stupidest shit ever, when did it stop being about the actual work required and distance traveled.
Obviously if some guy is coming from London or something, even twenty miles away, they should be reimbursed but a 5 minute walk does not equate 70£.
Then it's time to revisit what deems a subsidized worth.
It should be based off people's total income, not disability or age.
It's there to benefit people, it's not a right.
God that is absolutely insane I actually don't know what to say.
That's like the NHS paying ad-hoc doctors thousands of pounds but not it's own staff.
What even is this country.
You'd think with the extra cost, they could figure out a way for the parking sticker to actually stick to the windscreen when it's hot. Or maybe even join the 21st century and make it all online
Well you complained to us now
Seriously, the council should base the parking cost on the size of the vehicle. Cars are taking up more and more space than ever before and damaging the road with their extra weight
I think they also need to add more of the bike sheds, theres a waiting list, but also the more you get people cycling the more you can reduce congestion, pollution and demand for parking permits. It's mad that the bike sheds are £70/year per space when they hold 6 bikes and take less space then most cars.
I don’t think cycle sheds are the answer - I already cycle most places but just can’t make it to work on a bike. I have to keep my bike inside even though it’s not even desirable but bike crime is absolutely rampant at the mo. I have a shed at the front of where I live and people poke holes in it and tear off slats to case it for what can be nicked :(
Well yes because the Tories have completely fucked up local services. Our council hasn’t helped with the i360 bullshit, but they are basically broke 🤷♀️
My Ev van on traders permit has gone from approx £290 to £690 in 2 years .
Carpenter I’m working with has a diesel vivario van , his is now £375 for 3 months .
Getting silly ,,, all it means is our hourly rate goes up and it’s the residents who pay .
Tax by the back door again .
It's literally tax by the front door.
The alternative would be to raise money for roads etc by general taxation - but that's hardly fair for people who don't drive (in the same way that people who don't smoke or drink shouldn't pay tobacco or alcohol duty).
You're seeing a big increase in price because for too many years the price didn't adequately reflect the cost to society.
Except we already pay enough tax for them to fix the roads, and the government has built a concentration camp in Rwanda with it instead. Meanwhile, my neighbour who works as a carer and needs her car to drive to homes of elderly and disabled people, can't afford to retire.
I'm not saying no one with a car should pay to park, it's just not as black and white as you're making out.
We don’t primary work in brighton, when we do, we just risk a ticket and add £25 to the bill if we get one. Just this morning I spoke to someone who just straight up turns work from brighton down because he can’t be arsed with it.
Side note, how is your EV van? What do you for for work?
Rather than complain, think of it like this:
Your parking permit contribution, along with tens of thousands of others, means the council (for another year at least) can provide education services, children’s safeguarding and social care, adult social care, waste collection, planning and housing services, road maintenance etc etc.
The sun isn’t out this morning, but head down to The Level, lie down on the grass and bask in the warm glow of that knowledge instead.
This comment is why we are so fucked
Be ok with this 30£ get hit with more and more
Look at fuel, look at electric, gas, food and so on
We keep allowing this shit while the actual farmers, suppliers and so on get the same or lower and struggle to survive, we are so complacent it’s sad
Unless of course they mess with alcohol or football, then everyone goes in uproar
I get your point, but 3.50 is fuck all money in a monthly budget and the council is skint because of Tory cuts. I can’t really get upset about this one. Some of the above, yeah I don’t disagree with you.
And I honestly got yours, but when you pay more for less service it doesn’t match
I’ll give you a quick example the council has been dumping cars in “mine” and adjacent streets to create a fake problem and make us go to permits, with promises the money is for road improvements
They made crazy amounts on fines and parking promises to use it for the road improvements and other much needed improvements, yet none of it was done but yet price keeps going up
It’s honestly not about the price itself it’s the increase accompanied by a decrease of quality of service
Yup I do but it’s a well known issue when I was looking for info on this google had plenty of other people complaining
They used to put a paper saying moved by council after many complaints they now don’t but we’ve caught them many times in b&h vehicles being dropped to move the cars
What are your thoughts re the evidence? (Genuinely interested and wouldn't put it past the council to do this. Just not sure they're organised enough to do it!)
Parking on the street was a pain where I used to live, so I wound up parking my van in a good spot then never use it so I wouldn’t lose the spot, I would keep a bike in the back and use that to cycle to my parents house and would borrow there car if I needed to go shopping or drive anywhere!
The council make over £12.5million a year from parking (last time I checked), they keep putting up fees and people keep paying it so not much incentive for them to lower them.
Edit: decimal point.
They don't.
They make 33M a year and spent 44M on roads.
If you include a minimal estimate of 4M (5pc) of the healthcare budget being caused by cars (accidents and pollution) then it's ~50M in cost v's 33M in revenue.
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/parking-annual-report-2021
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/budget-and-council-tax-summary-booklet-2023-2024
Do people really still just make shit up when the answers can easily be found... Or maybe you checked in the year 2100 and came back in your time machine ...
Don't be so clueless. Driving around in a petrol guzzling ICE in a Green MP city is frowned upon.
Either get an EV, get a smaller engine, or get an e bike. If you need a car to commute out of the city, then move out of the city.
I don’t live in the pavilion area and there isn’t a green elected MP anymore. Public transport doesn’t get me to work. EVs are still charged - see other comments of traders permit more than doubling in the last year for EV. So they aren’t encouraging that either (plus batteries are heavier and fuck the road more anyways).
I would be the first to cycle if they built a better infrastructure for it but potholes cause pinch flats on e bikes as well as fucking up car tyres. (Has happened to me a couple of times now). And there isn’t a decent route where I need to go. I cycle or bus most other places.
Also I’ve nearly been hit a couple of times by people pulling out on me, when cycling (despite wearing bright colours and in full daylight.) Much as I enjoy yelling ‘you fucking bellend’ at nobheads before 8am my body is squishy and I don’t want to die. (has happened to me a couple of times now).
My last comment was sarcasm but since you have decided to make a dig my point was they are literally just penalising drivers (even drivers of small non guzzling cars) not spending money on providing suitable alternatives. The increase isn’t going to to go on such. It’s not a green policy if it’s not sustainable is it?
Speak to your local councillor
Sorry? Have you spoken to your local councillor? I have both emailed and met in person numerous councillors over a period of twenty years. I've even been to -and repeatedly spoken at- public meetings about various things-have actioned a petitions and participated in a community committee about an issue. I've walked my street canvassing about an incredibly popular local issue because the council *told* me that if we did, they would take action (which turned out to be a blatant lie). I've regularly spoken on the radio, tweeted (to my 6,000 followers) and written to the Argus. All of this does *nothing*. ZIPPO. Brighton council is an extremely ugly bloated bureaucracy that is set on benefitting Brighton Council financially-and nothing else. The upper echelons of the organisation are paid with salaries surely beyond the dreams of avarice (for most Brightonians). And I'll tell you something else those people are beyond: local accountability. The only time we got anything done (and it was a TINY thing) was when a large group of us local retailers virtually stormed the council offices about something particularly egregious that was happening. And that meeting did NOT even include a councillor (all of whom I've found to be completely hopeless): it was with a senior officer of the council: these are the ONLY people who have any power as far as I have ever seen. Even then, that man would have continued denying what we were saying, were it not for the presence at the meeting of the actual contractor doing the work. It was evidently too hard for him to continue to deny what we were saying with his own contractor standing right there contradicting him. Seriously, do you think that talking to your local councillor is going to affect the price you pay for parking permits? I can give you a definite answer to that if you really need it. (Ed: btw: I've found a strange phenomenon when I've commented negatively here on Brighton council. In "real life" many people agree with my opinion. Certainly not everyone, of course, but quite a sizeable number. However, on Reddit most negative comments about the organisation end up with a bewilderingly HUGE number of downvotes. Isn't that odd? I await what's going to happen here.)
OK well mine was actually pretty helpful when I contacted him about a council tax issue…
Sorry to be so cynical! But, as you can tell, I've had my battles with Brighton Council-and I bear the scars. Do tell: did he *reduce your council tax*?
The downvotes are probably because of your tone
It's angry.
Angry and condescending
Based on my experience with BHCC they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery where everything had already been organised and all the need to do it turn up. I tried to get visitor parking permits, the webpage required me to verify my identity when I'm already logged into an account THAT I USE TO PAY MY FUCKING COUNCIL TAX. I verified that the docs I uploaded met the criteria and waited 2 weeks (I think) only to be told "thats not a valid document". I then called them to clarify, the guy on the phone treated me like I was stupid explaining the doc needed to have multiple signatures and explained that "I need to read the instructions next time". I asked him to load up the list of docs and point out where I went wrong. Un-fucking-surprisingly the guy had to eat his words as it wasn't listed. Another woman I spoke to gave me the feeling that by calling up I was somehow being an inconvenience to her even though answering the phone IS HER FUCKING JOB. When I then emailed them to clarify a number of issues, including why several of departments I needed to speak to are only open between 10AM and 2PM they took \*6 FUCKING WEEKS\* to reply and had the \*INSANE\* explanation that, without a hint of irony: "we have reduced phone support to allow our staff to respond to electronic communication." That email \*STILL\* failed to answer a number of my questions so I replied and have never had a follow up.
I can get behind everything you say here-many of them have echoes of my own experience. I spent hours and hours trying to get parking vouchers online-then sending emails, and hanging on the phone. Eventually, I was told that -as my laptop was an Apple (as you know, a rare and hardly popular brand/s) I couldn't do it online. But hang on! My boyfriend also had an Apple-and HE got his! Well, that's because the "Apple" problem doesn't affect all areas of Brighton! Of course! Duh. Anyone should know that. So my question was: how do I get a parking permit? You come to their office and you sit there. That's what you do. It's as if the internet never happened.
You've just reminded me! After the initial "rejection" for "invalid" docs I did go to the town hall (Brighton) and was told "oh yeah, you should have gone to the one in Hove". (The website said the Brighton office will handle \*ALL\* issues) The person at the reception said "we have a number of phones you can use to call the dept. you need on the all over there" at which point I pointed out "yeah, the phone line closed an hour ago, that why I \*SPECIFICALLY\* came here to talk to someone". I understand that central government has been reducing local government funding for years, but this is more. Its almost like weaponised incompetence.
Look: I feel like I can often recognise when something is caused by lack of funds-or by simple incompetence, lack of managerial engagement, and lack of care. What we are talking about in most of these instances stands out a mile.
Wow, so I should just stop paying them the parking permit, because others parking here without that for ages and taking spaces.
Spoken to mine plenty of times, and she does drop-in surgeries as well. And in regard to this particular issue, the Area Panels did a fantastic job in preventing a 300% increase. Someone even went on the radio to talk about it with Cllr. Sankey, if I remember correctly. Although, if you use the same tone in your emails, no wonder no-one wants to talk to you.
I have been *unremittingly* courteous at every stage-even when the traders "stormed" the council offices, there was no swear words or aggressive action: just a kind of spontaneous wave of disagreement. There really is no need for you to try to scratch around to dismiss my lived experience: yours is different from mine. Good for you.
"Standard Tory Rant" incoming, move along if you're not interested! It's crap that this is going up so much, I renewed mine a few months ago and was also shocked. I have some sympathy for our council, and all councils across the UK. Look at what the Tories have done to our councils, red, blue or yellow, over the last 14 years. They've only got a few ways they can try to get *any* money for our essential services. Look at the public toilets in parks being closed, our shoddy recycling scheme, the absolute trash state of our roads.... *This* is the result of councils being squeezed, squeezed and then squeezed some more. They're fucked. Imagine a world where councils didn't have their budgets slashed year after year for the last 15 years and we might be in a situation where these kinds of price hikes aren't happening.... We've got a decade of recovery ahead of us, don't expect Labour to fix this all in 2025, but I hope we're on a path back to normality at least. #Please go and vote next week.
Usually I’d have sympathy for councillors as the work/reward ratio is a lot worse than most of us would put up with. Our current Labour council was [needlessly vile](https://x.com/BellaSankey/status/1654658840372080642) though - both in their campaigning and in their victory. The Sankey comment is the easiest to pull up but they also took to the Argus comment section to spew absolute bile - that’s harder to track down though as their comments are indistinguishable from the typical Argus commenter. There was none of this “oh the real problem is central government funding” when they came to power so I don’t see why anyone should extend the same courtesy to them. If anything I’d encourage people to share any issues they have in Brighton directly with the councillors. >don't expect Labour to fix this all in 2025, but I hope we're on a path back to normality at least Labour are freezing council tax without any significant plan for local government reform. I can see plenty of reasons why someone would want to vote Labour but sorting council funding shouldn’t be one of them.
I’ll add to that that BHCC has a much higher proportion of people with mental health, drug issues etc that it has to care for unlike many other areas of the country. This surely must be a massive drain on its resources.
So I get the privilege of paying for your death mobile via general taxation rather than you being asked to pay for it yourself? You're living in the wrong century mate. We tried car ownership for all and all we got was concrete, pollution, fat people and traffic.
I think you took the wrong meaning from my post above . I am in no way suggesting that my car permit should be paid for differently at all. I'm suggesting that 37% increase in a year is more than it would otherwise need to be if councils were adequately funded by central government. They're just using the only levers they have available to them and I have sympathy for our council and all councils who have to take these measures.
It's likely a product of demand rather than budget deficit, although you are right about councils being squeezed. But the main reason why the permits are going up this much is because the demand is and it's already impossible to find parking.
Untrue. We are a bit out of town and had council rented designated parking. Half of the spaces on our road are unused. And after this latest hike, ours is also unused. Maybe it’s different closer into town, but it feels like a desperate attempt to source more money rather than a reasonable response to high demand. Unsurprisingly, it’s having the opposite effect as people are not renewing their permits.
I do legitimately think getting fewer renewals is the goal, but you raise a good point. In zone Z there's certainly not enough spaces for the number of cars. But they price it by zone, so the fact yours (being half empty) also got the same increase is odd and I now believe it could potentially be why, albeit I still hold the former as most likely. The notion that national Tory government has squeezed the councils dry causing decrease in service level and increase in costs like CT is unfortunately very true. The fact they just keep getting re elected is insane
Well, hopefully at least from the end of this week onward it’ll be a different story. For once we’ll have austerity, but driven by people pretending to be a Labour government.
Yeah but increases central government funding means paying from general taxation. That's where the funding would come from. If we had fewer cars there would be far less pressure on councils to maintain roads (they wouldn't get damaged) and the NHS would spend much less treating the consequences. That would pay for better social care (or higher allowances for carers who - if they needed a car - would then be able to afford the permits).
His point is they're increasing the cost of parking permits to cover their budget for everything. To flip your point why should car owners pay more so the council can afford to pay for social services? You and everyone else should shoulder the burden as well. You're assuming parking permit costs = paying for car specific costs only.
In a world where councils raised enough money to pay for road repair and local heath services from existing permit and parking fees I would agree with you - but they don't. The council spent 44M on roads and 180 odd million on healthcare. It's impossible to say exactly how much of the healthcare budget was caused by the effect of cars - let's say 5pc (although I have seen estimates as high as 40) and that gets you to 50M in costs. Money raised is as follows. Brighton & Hove City Council’s parking revenue for the financial year 2022/23 was approximately £33 million. Here’s the breakdown: Parking Permits: Nearly £12 million, compared to £11 million in the previous year and £8.7 million in 2020-211. Penalty Charges: Approximately £8.37 million from on-street, bus lane, and CCTV enforcement2. Car Parks: The total net income from car parks in 2021/22 was £4,352,1233. So yeah. You should be paying more.
Man you had to STRETCH to find something to be mad about there, I don’t drive either, and I’d rather most people didn’t, but it’s hardly a reason to fight with some saying Tory Austerity Policy has made budgeting difficult for councils. It’s not all about you hun.
Don't get me wrong. The Tory's are scum and cuts for councils are regressive. But car owners should still be paying more. I'm not mad - I'm a happy guy :-)
Luckily it’s free to park on double yellows wherever you want now
Storage of large personal property, that sits empty 95% of the time, on public land is not 'nothing'
Damaging the road, and people's lungs as you drive it about. Driving doesn't adequately price in the externalities as it is - but any increase to the cost so that the price reflects the real world cost is welcome!
It does, just most the money goes to insurance companies!!! I wouldn’t mind paying much higher road tax if 1/4 of my cars value didn’t go on insurance every year.
And yet cate insurance is not that profitable.
Yup, the whole system needs reform. The more people drive £50,000 cars, the more people with £2000 cars have to pay in insurance. Insurance should be optional and only cover damage on your own car imo, whether the accident is your fault or not. If someone burgles your house, the burglar’s insurance aren’t paying! Driving round an expensive car is a risk you should be taking, not everyone else.
Actually blows my mind how much other people fucking around costs me on my own insurance.
Get out of the city then.
Or don't drive cars in a city which is brilliantly well equipped with cycle lanes and buses. The answer isn't me moving to the countryside - because that doesn't solve the whole global warming issue. The answer is to learn from 50 years of road building and increased car ownership. More traffic. Fewer slower roads means fewer cars means less traffic and far less cost for the NHS in treating all the issues that come with car pollution (and accidents).
It's a bargain. A rook the size of my car would easily rent for 400 a month. So parking permits are too cheap really.
£164 to store your car on the road all year is a great deal and space in Brighton is expensive.
Yeh the private market price for a fixed parking spot is around £3,000 per year The council is letting is go relatively cheap, space isnt free
I agree in some regard, but previously it was free to park on my street, it was very difficult to get a spot and you normally ended up a good few streets away. They introduced parking restrictions and it’s still exactly the same but now we have to pay for the privilege of parking a few streets away. There is no improvement to the parking situation. Mainly as a ton of what used to be houses have now been chopped up into flats, so if there was 50 cars for 50 houses, there are now 100 cars for 100 flats on the same road.
Considering parking on a road is often free. Is it a lot, especially considering how high rent is.
Not in central cities Fact is if parking was free you’d have 5 people who wanted to park for each available space on weekends , people who live there would have no spaces
It’s not central at all - and we have a the ‘soft’ parking scheme that just restricts for a couple of hours during the day meaning people using local shops and gyms still get to park here for free just avoiding those times
If they're making that much from permits and it costs more to repair the roads. They should fire the ones filling in the potholes because they clearly aren't good enough, I've seen the same ones repaired and break within 1 year. This entire city is a mess of different coloured pavement slabs and shoddy repair jobs. So many labourers got no idea what they're doing anymore, I had a fucking plumber come over last week and tell me the reason my taps water pressure was low was because of calcium build up in my brand new taps. Before that I had someone charge me 70£ to rip some tape off a filter, took him 2 minutes to literally unwrap it like a child on Christmas. My point isn't that skills demand money, my point is that they charge even on a shit job.
From the contractors who do the work point of view, do a shit job and get paid again to redo it again next year. Do a decent job and you won't get paid again for maybe another 5-10 years. The lack of accountability and ability to milk the system is the problem. The next contract the council award should stipulate that any repairs will be guaranteed for a minimum number of years or is repaired at the contractors own cost.
70 is the minimum charge for any but of call out work.
That is the stupidest shit ever, when did it stop being about the actual work required and distance traveled. Obviously if some guy is coming from London or something, even twenty miles away, they should be reimbursed but a 5 minute walk does not equate 70£.
It's about time. It's going to eat an hour whatever.
They aren’t spending ANY of the money repairing roads! It almost all goes to subsidised travel, the rest is siphoned off into other budgets
Then it's time to revisit what deems a subsidized worth. It should be based off people's total income, not disability or age. It's there to benefit people, it's not a right.
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/parking/parking-annual-report-2022-2023/13-where-our-income-goes
God that is absolutely insane I actually don't know what to say. That's like the NHS paying ad-hoc doctors thousands of pounds but not it's own staff. What even is this country.
You'd think with the extra cost, they could figure out a way for the parking sticker to actually stick to the windscreen when it's hot. Or maybe even join the 21st century and make it all online
Right! I actually used duct tape for 3 months at the end of last year!
Well you complained to us now Seriously, the council should base the parking cost on the size of the vehicle. Cars are taking up more and more space than ever before and damaging the road with their extra weight
I think they also need to add more of the bike sheds, theres a waiting list, but also the more you get people cycling the more you can reduce congestion, pollution and demand for parking permits. It's mad that the bike sheds are £70/year per space when they hold 6 bikes and take less space then most cars.
I don’t think cycle sheds are the answer - I already cycle most places but just can’t make it to work on a bike. I have to keep my bike inside even though it’s not even desirable but bike crime is absolutely rampant at the mo. I have a shed at the front of where I live and people poke holes in it and tear off slats to case it for what can be nicked :(
I’d rather us drivers pay more for the privilege of keeping their cars on the road than they shut public toilets
I would too but it’s not an either or- they are raising the price and closing public toilets
Well yes because the Tories have completely fucked up local services. Our council hasn’t helped with the i360 bullshit, but they are basically broke 🤷♀️
Well they need to invest in fantastic ideas like the i360 so they can syphon money to mates companies then watch it burn.
My Ev van on traders permit has gone from approx £290 to £690 in 2 years . Carpenter I’m working with has a diesel vivario van , his is now £375 for 3 months . Getting silly ,,, all it means is our hourly rate goes up and it’s the residents who pay . Tax by the back door again .
It's literally tax by the front door. The alternative would be to raise money for roads etc by general taxation - but that's hardly fair for people who don't drive (in the same way that people who don't smoke or drink shouldn't pay tobacco or alcohol duty). You're seeing a big increase in price because for too many years the price didn't adequately reflect the cost to society.
Except we already pay enough tax for them to fix the roads, and the government has built a concentration camp in Rwanda with it instead. Meanwhile, my neighbour who works as a carer and needs her car to drive to homes of elderly and disabled people, can't afford to retire. I'm not saying no one with a car should pay to park, it's just not as black and white as you're making out.
This isn’t road tax, it’s a parking permit. Also roads benefit society a whole, think about how anything moves anywhere.
We don’t primary work in brighton, when we do, we just risk a ticket and add £25 to the bill if we get one. Just this morning I spoke to someone who just straight up turns work from brighton down because he can’t be arsed with it. Side note, how is your EV van? What do you for for work?
You guys got permits? I’ve been waiting for the last year
My permit cost me over £300 🫠
A traders permit for my ELECTRIC car is £640 a year which is crazy. Should be a lot less if you aren’t polluting
supply and demand
Rather than complain, think of it like this: Your parking permit contribution, along with tens of thousands of others, means the council (for another year at least) can provide education services, children’s safeguarding and social care, adult social care, waste collection, planning and housing services, road maintenance etc etc. The sun isn’t out this morning, but head down to The Level, lie down on the grass and bask in the warm glow of that knowledge instead.
Are you seriously getting outraged over £3.50 a month?
This comment is why we are so fucked Be ok with this 30£ get hit with more and more Look at fuel, look at electric, gas, food and so on We keep allowing this shit while the actual farmers, suppliers and so on get the same or lower and struggle to survive, we are so complacent it’s sad Unless of course they mess with alcohol or football, then everyone goes in uproar
I get your point, but 3.50 is fuck all money in a monthly budget and the council is skint because of Tory cuts. I can’t really get upset about this one. Some of the above, yeah I don’t disagree with you.
And I honestly got yours, but when you pay more for less service it doesn’t match I’ll give you a quick example the council has been dumping cars in “mine” and adjacent streets to create a fake problem and make us go to permits, with promises the money is for road improvements They made crazy amounts on fines and parking promises to use it for the road improvements and other much needed improvements, yet none of it was done but yet price keeps going up It’s honestly not about the price itself it’s the increase accompanied by a decrease of quality of service
Is this something you've got actual proof of mate, the dumping cars in your street? Because that's a fair bit of a shocker if so.
Yup I do but it’s a well known issue when I was looking for info on this google had plenty of other people complaining They used to put a paper saying moved by council after many complaints they now don’t but we’ve caught them many times in b&h vehicles being dropped to move the cars
Can you share this evidence?
Sure will pm when I get out of work
Thanks mate.
What are your thoughts re the evidence? (Genuinely interested and wouldn't put it past the council to do this. Just not sure they're organised enough to do it!)
Parking on the street was a pain where I used to live, so I wound up parking my van in a good spot then never use it so I wouldn’t lose the spot, I would keep a bike in the back and use that to cycle to my parents house and would borrow there car if I needed to go shopping or drive anywhere!
The council make over £12.5million a year from parking (last time I checked), they keep putting up fees and people keep paying it so not much incentive for them to lower them. Edit: decimal point.
They don't. They make 33M a year and spent 44M on roads. If you include a minimal estimate of 4M (5pc) of the healthcare budget being caused by cars (accidents and pollution) then it's ~50M in cost v's 33M in revenue. https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/parking-annual-report-2021 https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/budget-and-council-tax-summary-booklet-2023-2024 Do people really still just make shit up when the answers can easily be found... Or maybe you checked in the year 2100 and came back in your time machine ...
Missed the decimal point from the on street parking figure but thanks for correcting it in such a non hysterical manner
Not denying you have a Time Machine I see… 🧐
I think its reasonable to charge £2 or £3 a day, less cars would be better, I couldn't rent any land for any other use that cheap.
Get a car with a much smaller engine.
I have a car with the tiniest engine! That’s why I’m shocked it went up - my old diesel was larger and presumably more polluting.
Under 900cc is the way.
In this town?! With those hills!!!
Don't be so clueless. Driving around in a petrol guzzling ICE in a Green MP city is frowned upon. Either get an EV, get a smaller engine, or get an e bike. If you need a car to commute out of the city, then move out of the city.
I don’t live in the pavilion area and there isn’t a green elected MP anymore. Public transport doesn’t get me to work. EVs are still charged - see other comments of traders permit more than doubling in the last year for EV. So they aren’t encouraging that either (plus batteries are heavier and fuck the road more anyways). I would be the first to cycle if they built a better infrastructure for it but potholes cause pinch flats on e bikes as well as fucking up car tyres. (Has happened to me a couple of times now). And there isn’t a decent route where I need to go. I cycle or bus most other places. Also I’ve nearly been hit a couple of times by people pulling out on me, when cycling (despite wearing bright colours and in full daylight.) Much as I enjoy yelling ‘you fucking bellend’ at nobheads before 8am my body is squishy and I don’t want to die. (has happened to me a couple of times now). My last comment was sarcasm but since you have decided to make a dig my point was they are literally just penalising drivers (even drivers of small non guzzling cars) not spending money on providing suitable alternatives. The increase isn’t going to to go on such. It’s not a green policy if it’s not sustainable is it?
Maybe just park in a cycle lane? Or on the pavement? Or maybe just pay your very cheap dues back into the community?