New parking restrictions in Hove have been approved

Roads to the east of Hove Park will have a ‘light-touch’ residents’ parking scheme after a unanimous vote by councillors last night (November 27).

This means only those with residents permits can park from Monday to Friday between 9am to 10am and 1pm to 2pm.

Conservative councillor Vanessa Brown told the council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee that residents in her Hove Park ward wanted the scheme because of workers from Legal and General parking in the streets.

A senior executive from the financial services company, Hove’s biggest private-sector employer, spoke against the scheme as the committee met at Hove Town Hall.

Karan Martin, who runs the L&G site at City Park, next to Hove Park, said that workers had no other option but to park on the roads despite the company’s best efforts to offer alternatives.

Cllr Brown said: “I am obviously very supportive of local business and appreciate the community work they do.

“However, it is because of the City Park development that my residents felt the need to have parking restrictions.”

Ms Martin said that the company’s car park was limited to 400 spaces and priority was given to car sharers.

But Cllr Brown said: “Often three cars are driven into our ward, three drivers get out and then into a fourth car so that car goes into the car park.

“It is just farcical.”

Ms Martin said that the company brought a large economic benefit to the community as one of the area’s major employers – and with its charity work.

She said that parking problems would make it harder to recruit and retain future employees at City Park, where the company has more than 1,800 staff.

Parking is a challenge, she said, as there was no alternative while people living in the area did have alternatives such as driveways and other off-road parking.

Ms Martin said: “The parking restrictions proposed in the absence of any viable alternative parking in the vicinity would present an increasingly challenging situation for us.

“We are extremely concerned that any parking restrictions in the Hove Park area would make attracting new employees difficult for us and we could lose existing valuable employees, putting us in a hugely challenging situation as an employer.”

Neighbours in streets towards the southern end of the new parking zone also made representations, describing the proposed scheme as ‘expensive’.

However, they were told that they could either have the proposed scheme – or their single yellow lines would be removed. Most backed the scheme.

More than half of the people living in the area responded to the council’s parking consultation, with more than 68 per cent of residents voting for it.