Seafront parking charges are due to more than double along the eastern end of Madeira Drive for the summer – from the start of March to the end of October – and along the whole length of the road and Kingsway, Hove, during the winter.
The charge in Madeira Drive east is due to increase by 256 per cent for an hour in the summer months, from £1.60 to £5.70, bringing it in line with the western end and King’s Road.
For two hours, the increase is 197 per cent, to £9.80, and for four hours by 135 per cent to £16.50.
Winter tariffs are also increasing from £1.60 an hour to £3.30, an increase of 106 per cent, and for two hours to £7.40, a 124 per cent increase.
Parking in streets around Dyke Road and The Level are earmarked to increase by 48 per cent for one hour, from £3.30 to £4.80.
Resident, trader and business permits are due to go up by 3 per cent, broadly in line with inflation, but permits for schools, doctors and carers – paid and unpaid – would be frozen.
The changes are part of a series of draft proposals for Brighton and Hove City Council’s fees and charges.
All the fees and charges changes will still need to be agreed by the “budget council” meeting on Thursday 26 February before they come into force.
Council car parks will see their hourly rates frozen. This impacts Regency Square, London Road, Trafalgar Street and The Lanes car park in Black Lion Street.
Overnight charges in The Lanes are due to increase by £2.50 for overnight parking from 6pm to midnight and midnight to 8am from £7.50 to £10 for each time period.
The council, like all other councils, is bound by a High Court ruling by Mrs Justice Lang on parking surpluses.
The judge said the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 was “not a fiscal measure and does not authorise the authority to use its powers to charge local residents for parking in order to raise surplus revenue for other transport purposes”.
If a surplus is generated, it can be used to fund transport projects. Brighton and Hove City Council’s parking charge surplus has been used to cover the cost of concessionary bus fares for older people and the disabled and to subsidise some bus routes and other transport-related spending.
The budget council is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4.30pm on Thursday 26 February. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast.
Cabinet members voted to remove a proposed big rise in parking charges in parts of Brighton and Hove which were published in council papers “in error”.
The proposals were published in the report for Thursday’s Brighton and Hove City Council cabinet meeting. The changes would have seen four controlled zones around the edge of the city centre move from low to medium charges.
Labour councillors were alerted to the controversial proposals by the Local Democracy Reporting Service and an amendment to the budget papers to remove the increases were unanimously backed by the cabinet.
The erroneous increases covered parking zones C, in Queen’s Park, H, in the Kemp Town hospital area, J, around London Road Station, and N, in central Hove, and suggested that the zones would move from low to medium tariffs.
It would mean an increase of than 60 per cent for 11 hours of parking from £8.90 to £14.50, a new six-hour charge of £11 and a 40 per cent increase for four hours from £6.40 to £9.
One hour’s parking would increase from £1.60 to £2.20, up 37.5 per cent, and parking for two hours would increase from £3.30 to £4.50 – up 36.4 per cent in the four zones.
When Labour won the 2023 local elections, it scrapped higher-rate charges for the same four zones after an outcry from the public.
Concerns were raised about the effects on hospital workers, patients and visitors who tended to park in zones C and H.
In July 2023, the Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey said that the proposals at that time to almost quadruple some parking charges would not go ahead.
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