“The amount of money I pay for parking is ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable”, said Madison Lambert on her current parking situation in Brighton & Hove. Madison is an architecture student at the University of Brighton and she works part-time in a restaurant in Hove. The long ways between her home, the university and her workplace require Madison to have a car, but it is “extremely challenging” for her to afford it. She uses her car every day, and she is paying the price for it – nearly £4000 to maintain her car including road tax, insurance and most importantly: parking permits.
In recent years the constant rise in parking permit prices has sparked debates between residents and the council. In the 2024 financial year, parking prices are set to rise by a further 7%.
As the city is battling with the increase of people through urbanisation and the lack of government funding, which has decreased by 40% since 2010, the local government has found itself in a tricky situation balancing the need for revenue generation with the concerns of affordability and accessibility for its residents, as they are currently paying up to £412 on a parking permit per year.
The most recent change to parking permits that has caused debates includes the different prices a car owner pays for their permit depending on the car’s emission category. These categories include low-emission, standard and high-emission vehicles.
Yearly parking permit prices in Brighton range between around £100 and £412, depending on the emission category of the car as well as where the permit is required for. Within this scheme, a town-centre permit is more expensive than a permit on the outskirts.
High-emission car owner and computer science student at the University of Brighton Leo Waters believes that it is “impossible for a student or someone who has a low income to afford the increasing parking prices”.
He continues: “If you go anywhere in Brighton, you must either have a large bank account or enough time in your hands to spend half of your day walking there.”
Leo is not the only resident who is struggling to pay for parking. Madison and Jerome Bailey, Media Manager at Rox Promotions are also unhappy with the situation.
Jerome works full time but does not always use his car to get to work. Regardless, as he owns a vehicle, he still has to pay for parking. He said: “I constantly have to pay for on street parking which inevitably leads to parking fines, and I am at a constant financial loss if I’m not using my car frequently.”
Madison on the other hand uses her car daily and as her job and home are in different parking zone areas she has to pay double. She said: “I spend £1,614 on parking per year not including my car insurance etc. because the areas I work and live in are both permit areas.
“Two hours of my wage go towards parking at my work every shift.”
Jacob Taylor, Deputy Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council – Finance Lead who is part of the Labour Party, broadly agrees with the parking permit system in Brighton. Nonetheless him and the council “need to consider whether lower income households are disproportionally impacted by this because newer electric vehicles are more expensive to buy”.
As the council’s budget continues to decrease, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, feels that the council has to increase alternative revenue sources like council tax and parking permit prices in order to provide good public services to residents. He said: “We (the council) have no other choice but to create forms of new revenue. It is nearly impossible to find a fair solution.”
Taylor added: “Local government funding is in deep crisis and national government has not provided proper financial settlements for many years. (…) In this year’s budget we tried to keep parking permit rises to a minimum – 7% on average.”
Nonetheless, in the financial year 2021/22, Brighton and Hove City Council made over £31 million from parking charges across the city. When asked what happens with that money, Taylor said: “It is ring-fenced for use on transport related spending, i.e. maintaining road infrastructure, repairs, yellow lines etc.”
Some residents of Brighton still cannot understand what they are paying this money for because the roads “are very badly maintained”, Leo said. “There are smoother off-road trails than roads in Brighton. We all pay so much money on parking and I question what happens with it because saying they use it for road maintenance is a joke if you have a look at the roads.”
Navigating the dilemma of rising parking permit prices requires a balance between financial responsibility and social equity.
Both, Taylor and Russell-Moyle, believe that while the council must seek ways to generate revenue to provide other public services for residents, such as education, healthcare and public safety, it is equally important to acknowledge and respond to opinions from the community.
In order to minimise the dispute around the parking schemes in Brighton & Hove, alternative ways of managing parking in Brighton have been presented to the council but have not been approved.
Recently, there has been a call for income-based permit pricing schemes where prices would be determined through a person’s wage instead of the emissions of their car. Nonetheless, it would defeat the purpose of the council’s goal to decrease the number of high-emission cars on the roads as part of the BHCC’s Carbon Neutral 2030 Goal, Russell-Moyle stated.
As Brighton & Hove look to the future, the journey towards a fair and sustainable way of adjusting parking prices is far from over but the council is hoping for more government funding in the upcoming years to create an affordable way of living for residents, especially in times of the cost of living crisis.
“I hope we can limit, or even freeze, (parking permit prices) but that will depend on the overall financial position of the council”, Councillor Taylor concludes.