News release issued Monday, 24 March, 2014
Free Sunday parking could cost us dearly: Bus services and air quality could be at risk
Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth (BHFOE) is condemning calls by Brighton & Hove Liberal Democrats for free Sunday parking [1] as financially irresponsible and potentially damaging to the city in the long term. The Lib-Dems petition on this is due to be discussed at Brighton & Hove City Council’s Full Council meeting on Thursday.
Local authority budgets are under severe constraint and with bigger cuts coming over the next few years, as indicated in the recent Budget, BHFOE believes that to reduce income which could be used to improve the city’s crumbling infrastructure is foolish. BHFOE also believes that making a substantial amount of parking free on Sunday could cause even more congestion and pollution as cars drive around the city looking for free spaces. The measure would also risk undermining Sunday bus services, which are often less profitable than weekday ones. Loss of these services could see some people become more isolated, while others might feel they need to own a car whereas previously they didn’t. This would then create more congestion and pollution and put more pressure on residents’ parking.
Chris Todd from BHFOE said:
“These proposals from the Liberal Democrats are just plain daft. They are jumping on the free parking bandwagon without thinking through the consequences. Who is going to pay is clear. We all are. Our roads are crumbling and services for the needy and vulnerable are under severe pressure. From the budget last week it’s obvious that things are only going to get tougher for local authorities with even more cuts on the way. So chucking away income from Sunday parking would be financially irresponsible.
“Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, when he was Transport Minister, probably did more than any minister previously to support the bus industry. Yet here are his colleagues in Brighton & Hove proposing a measure that could lead to a loss in bus services.
“We would urge the City Council to ignore this rash petition. If the Liberal Democrats really care about the city, they should support measures to reduce car use and improve air quality, while making it safer and more pleasant for people of all ages to walk, cycle and use public transport.”
[1] The Liberal Democrats are proposing that parking charges are scrapped for all council run car parks and on-street parking bays on Sundays
Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth 
Hi BHFOE,
I’m Lev Eakins, Chair of Brighton and Hove Liberal Democrats.
I thought I’d pick up on one of your main objections – the financial side of things.
According to recent RAC research, Brighton and Hove Council collected £16.5m of parking fees and fines – the highest anywhere in the country outside of London.
Manchester by contrast – a much larger city – collected only £8m.
In the two previous years Brighton Council collected an additional £3.5 million surplus fees and fines – that’s an additional £1.75 every year. As such, we believe the Council can afford to give hard pressed residents and tourists one day a week off.
We also believe this will make our city more welcoming and stimulate more weekend visits to our great city – increasing trade and creating badly needed jobs.
In a recent poll 81% of local residents support the proposals and it was very easy to collect the 1,250 signatures – we even had queues of people waiting to sign on several occasions.
I’m sorry we don’t have your support for this campaign, but this won’t dampen my own support of the great work Friends of Earth does. I fondly remember working alongside your colleagues in Manchester on our campaign to stop the expansion of Manchester Airport.
If Chris Todd is up for it, I’d love to buy him a pint one day so he can tell me more about the work BHFOE does for our great city. 🙂
This is just more complex than looking at a balance sheet. It will lead to greater car use and this will increase congestion and air pollution. These are costs not considered by your proposals and what price is there on good health with air pollution in this country already leading to 29,000 premature deaths every year?
In addition, nearly 40% of households do not have access to a car and many are reliant on buses to get around. Sunday services however are more marginal in economic viability. The proposal for free Sunday parking would take people off the buses and this will reduce bus company income. If this happens, the bus company will either cut services, which the Council might then need to support costing us more money, or reduce frequencies. This will penalise the elderly and those who cannot afford a car,
If you want to get more people to visit the city and stimulate trade why not use the money you would spend on free car parking to give reduced fares on public transport? It is a far more effective way of moving large numbers of people in a crowded city.
I’m always up for a pint and happy to discuss these issues with you but I’m afraid your proposals just don’t stack up and could be very damaging in the long term.
Chris Todd
Chris – let’s continue this over a pint? Email sometime on info@liberalbrighton.org – I’d love to meet with you. 🙂
Lev
I stumbled across this article while looking for a breakdown of parking costs and revenues in Brighton and Hove.
I lived near the level for a decade but now live out of town, so my perspective has changed somewhat.
Luckily I am on a bus route that services Brighton, but to be honest the journey is just too long and uncomfortable to consider.
My best route into Brighton now without car, is a bike and train link. I have a three mile cycle to the station. Which is doable if the weather is clement. On wet days, the bus and train would be a good combination. That would currently cost me about £10, with some added inconvenience (waiting in shelters etc.) If I want to travel with my partner, financially it becomes untenable.
I think motorised traffic ruins town centres for pedestrians. I can understand the want for low cost/ free parking. If town centres are worth keeping you need to welcome visitors.
I think when building the Falmer stadium, we missed a really good opportunity. We could have used the Waterhall site instead and added a new railway station platform and a huge car park. (It’s my understanding that the reason Waterhall wasn’t used was because it fell on the wrong side of the A27.)
By doing so we could have kept traffic out of the town. It would have also benefited commuters. Rather ridiculously It turns out that the Falmer stadium pretty much outlaws car travel to matches, with people driving into town to get a bus back out to the stadium!
There is still an opportunity to place car parks at strategic points on the edge of town and combine them with rapid links into town. Cheap bus and cycle hire. Waterhall would still be a great site for that, and could help on match days. Car parks themselves can be made to be quite attractive with good planting. They could make for good picnic areas, pit stops and also bolster tourism to the national park.
This would result in a town centre that I’d like to visit. Currently I am less and less inclined, not through lack of want.
I’m an advocate of free parking as long as it doesn’t encourage town centre traffic. How could that work with Brighton and Hove’s existing infrastructure?
Brighton and Hove on the whole feels like it has more traffic than ever, it’s quite horrible save for the 20mph limit. Other towns and villages should take note, there are long term guides to sensible parking provision. Slow and congested traffic is pollutes and isn’t very nice.
My last paragraph didn’t make sense. It meant to say towns and villages should take note, and think long and hard about sensible parking provision. Aim for an increase in footfall, not traffic and pollution.
Building more car parks without providing cheap and attractive alternatives will only make the problem worse. It will encourage more people to drive and will undermine public transport, which if you think is poor now will get even worse.
In addition, it uses up vast amounts of space which could be better used to provide much needed land for housing.
You might have a point if most of the car parks in the city centre were redeveloped, but politically we cannot see that happening, so all you would end up with is a massive increase in car parks and car use and all the detrimental impacts on the city that you bemoan.
As for building a large car park at Waterhall or anywhere else in the National Park, it will have a big impact. It would be totally out of keeping with the National Park landscape and is likely to have a negligible benefit for tourism. That’s not even mentioning the loss of community sports pitches which are already in short supply across the city.
My main concern is in removing motorised traffic from the town centre, and I offered up a sensible and cheap solution. That would also encourage and help out of town visitors.
I’m sorry, but a car park at Waterhall does not have to have that much of a negative impact. The site and area has already been decimated by the A27. Much of the natural beauty has all but gone especially the corner nearest the roundabout that suffers from a huge amount of noise pollution.
You could alternatively place car parks within the city limits, but as you have said these areas are probably better suited for housing or recreation.
Of course I’d rather see people use alternative transport. Car pool etc. Not everyone is fit enough to walk or cycle. Or has the luxury of a good bus link or train station close by. How do you cater for out of town visitors?
I tried sitting out the journey yesterday on the bus. Way over an hour on a cramped bus, that went all around the houses. It was not pleasant. Another passenger grew so frustrated that he cut his journey short to seek an alternative way into Brighton (he was quite vocal about it). I’d still rather cycle, but that’s not so easy when the weather is terrible. If B&H had good public toilets, with showers, I could at least swap clothes.
There are some improvements that could help with the buses. Fairer fares. Express routes and cheaper tickets that allow you to roam.
Park and rides are a good idea, but they need to be subsidised and positioned carefully.
I’m a huge advocate of cycling. There are some routes across the city that are difficult to traverse by bike. They should get appropriate attention. Getting from the town/seafront to Patcham is horrible (up until Preston Park). The Lewes Rd between the Level and gyratory is woeful (beyond the gyratory to the universities never felt like much of a problem, but has had a radical overhaul).
Better road surfaces, secure parking, better cycle awareness, lighting, good traffic management and a reduction in traffic is far more preferable to a few poorly connected glorified cycle lanes. Cycle lanes that are are littered with pot holes and obstacles are not much of a substitute for using the road either.