Call for city-wide look at new controlled parking zones

Conservative councillor Lee Wares criticised the piecemeal way that parking zones were created which then displaced the problem to neighbouring areas.

He said: “Everywhere wants something done because people are fed up with displacement today or waiting for what is coming around the corner.

“They want to get to the front of the queue because they know what’s coming three or four years down the line.”

When Brighton and Hove City Council brought in residents’ parking permits in Hanover and Elm Grove, he said, the displacement left people in the Coombe Road area in shock.

He said: “We do not want residents experiencing 10 years of misery. Why not just see to the rest of the city.

“The time has come when we have to bite the bullet and do something massive on a citywide scale.”

Green councillor Pete West said that the Conservatives had previously resisted any form of controlled parking by “kicking and screaming”. He said: “We have got to find another way forward.

“We cannot tell people just waking up to displacement from the next scheme going forward, telling them they’re not going to get into the queue until 2024 or after that.

“We cannot ask people to wait that long to solve a problem not of their making.”

The council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee was told that a consultation is currently underway for a controlled parking zone in South Portslade. It follows displacement from the latest schemes in West Hove.

At Hove Town Hall on Tuesday (October 8) the committee agreed a new four-year programme of reviews and consultations.

Next year people in the Surrenden area will be asked whether they want resident parking after they suffered displacement from earlier schemes.

A review is due to take place of the zone J area around London Road railway station next year where the parking zone has grown, giving rise to concerns about “internal commuting”.

And the new zone P – covering a number of streets east of Hove Park – is also due to be reviewed late next year.

Other reviews and consultations are due to take place in parts of West Hove, north and south of the railway line, as well as in Roedean and Hollingdean.