100 signatures reached
To: Penny Thompson, Chief Executive, Brighton and Hove City Council
Stop the Zone 'E' Pay-for-Parking Scheme in Brighton and Hove
Dear Penny Thompson, please bring to a halt the implementation of the pay-for-parking zone in the suburb of Preston Park North and re-run the local consultation and vote fairly.
Why is this important?
The initial consultation was manipulated to include responses from people who wouldn't be affected by the scheme. This 'fix' enabled the council to claim a 50%/50% split vote, but their own guidance (document HP 4/15) states "Experience has shown that Resident Parking Schemes will not be successful unless they have majority support of responses received". 50% is not a majority, but members of all parties (including the Greens!) decided to go ahead anyway.
There is neither the wish nor the need to move from free parking to permits of £120 per year plus the cost of visitor permits. Council officers and members deny that the scheme is about the money. But a FOI (Freedom of Information) request showed that, in this zone alone, they could expect net profits (ie profits after costs) of £700,000 over 10 years: and that without any increase to permit or parking costs.
The Council intends to continue rolling out its pay-for-parking schemes right across Brighton and Hove, in every area: these schemes are viral. Once an area has a scheme, displaced parkers create parking problems in neighbouring areas, who then also feel forced into having a scheme, and so it goes on. It is a completely deliberate attempt to create a 'cash cow'.
The council was so keen to instigate its scheme (we had already refused it twice) that its contractors worked all over Bank Holiday weekend (starting at 8am with angle grinders, diggers etc). The lines are painted and some of the sign posts are already in. We are already being harassed by 'fake' parking tickets and bully-boy tactics by the council's contractors (and have plenty of evidence).
The schemes spoil our environments, discourage visitors and threaten local businesses. In other areas, people have dug up front gardens to create off-road parking: flora and fauna lost, as well as the original parking space that was there.
Some of us have organised ourselves, but the Ombudsman will not take our case, and we cannot afford a Judicial Review (complaints investigated' by the council themselves have got precisely nowhere, unsurprisingly). The council called the police twice to arrest our local lay priest - he was only exercising his right to peaceful protest, and - thankfully - the police saw this.
We need your help, please, in getting the council to stop and pause, and re-run a fair consultation by which we will all stand.
