Criticism of plans to freeze car parking fees in Brighton and Hove
Campaigners claim the move would subsidize high-income motorists
The council was accused of subsiding drivers with a proposal to freeze parking charges and resident permit prices.
The claim was made by former Green local election candidate Mark Strong who now sits as a co-opted member of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Mr Strong told the committee on Friday (February 7th) that it was a subsidy for high-income groups and, by extension, a tax on everyone else.
But Labour cabinet member Trevor Muten said that it was unhelpful to characterise drivers as wealthy, not least given the number of key workers who relied on a car for work.
The exchanges took place as the committee debated the Labour-led council’s budget proposals for the 2025-26 financial year which starts in April.
Labour councillor John Hewitt asked why the council was making less money from parking even though charges had gone up.
The budget report said: “Parking charges are being frozen partly because traffic in the city has reduced since the pandemic – a key objective of sustainable transport policies.”
It was also “partly to balance the impact on the visitor and business economies and partly because other alternatives for disincentivising car use in the urban area, including park and ride, are being developed”.
Mr Strong, who represents the community and voluntary sector, said that various groups were concerned that freezing parking charges was a “tax on everyone”, particularly the majority who do not travel by car.
He said: “What you’re doing is providing a subsidy for high-income groups in Brighton and visitors to Brighton at the expense of low-paid people in Brighton.
“The lowest 10 per cent of people don’t have access to cars. Car ownership only becomes higher in the upper rangers of income.
And freezing parking charges to “stimulate demand” went against policies in the council’s local transport plan to reduce car use, he added.
Councillor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport and parking, said that over the past five years parking charges had gone up by 50 per cent.
From 2018 to 2021, parking charges rose by 2 per cent a year. They went up 10 per cent in 2021-22 and by 15 per cent in 2022-23 and a further 15 per cent in 2023-24. The increase last year was 6 per cent.
Councillor Muten said that Labour scrapped the quadrupling of on-street parking charges in four parking zones two months after taking over the council in 2023.
The big increases covered four parking zones including the area around Royal Sussex County Hospital, affecting patients and staff.
He said: “To suggest that people with cars are exclusively people who have got wealth is not quite true.
“I really think that’s an unhelpful characterisation because there are people who are key workers in our city.”
The committee was told that parking charges helped to fund unprofitable bus routes but the above-inflation price rises were not bringing in the income needed, with a significant drop in the number of drivers parking in the centre of Brighton.
Councillor Muten added: “Price hikes previously have not been helpful for many other aspects of the city. I do include that in terms of social inequality in our city.
“It’s prohibitive for those people on lower incomes to come and drive around the city so they can get to their jobs – those key workers on lower incomes.”
Some 500 parking spaces had been removed, notably prime spaces on the seafront such as those in Madeira Drive, costing the council £1.2 million a year, he said.
The Labour deputy leader of the council, Jacob Taylor, said that the Green party position was astronomical increases in parking charges.
He said that residents in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean often tended to be slightly older and used cars to get into town for shopping and hospital appointments.
Councillor Taylor said: “What’s being said is that you must use parking as a blunt instrument to stop people using their cars and coming into the city and do it in a flat regressive way and put people off from coming it.
“It has a huge impact on people in outlying areas. Of course we would like them to get a bus or cycle in. When they do drive, it’s a flat tax on them – a flawed strategy in pure financial terms. We keep losing income.”
Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Mark Earthey suggested an “increase by stealth” by adjusting parking rates by different times of day.
Green councillor Sue Shanks said that the council could bring in more controlled parking schemes if it wanted to generate revenue.
Councillor Shanks said: “There are several areas in the city which don’t have parking schemes and are very congested in terms of parking. We don’t agree with freezing parking fees at all.”
Consultation on a controlled parking zone is currently under way in Hollingdean. The Nevill area of Hove is high up the council’s priority list for a similar consultation. People in Portslade and Rottingdean have also asked for parking permit schemes.
Conservative councillor Ivan Lyons said that his group welcomed the parking charge freeze and would like charges to be reduced.
The papers before the committee at Hove Town Hall on Friday said that the council would have to find savings totalling £16 million in the coming financial year.
The council is proposing another 4.99 per cent increase in council tax, with about 40 per cent of the rise to be ringfenced for adult social care.
The budget is due to be set at a meeting of the full council at Hove Town Hall on February 27th, starting at 4.30pm. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.