£20m parking profit but drivers spend 16 working days a year in traffic

The city council has raked in the largest amount outside London at £20.1 million, with Nottingham in second place (£13.6 million) and Milton Keynes in third (£10.8 million).

The news comes as research shows traffic congestion is costing Brighton businesses a staggering £9 million a year in lost productivity.

A new report found traffic in the city increases the time each vehicle spends on the road by 129 hours a year – more than 16 working days.

New research also shows the surplus produced from council parking operations in England rose by 9 per cent over the past year.

Some £756 million was generated from the on- and off-street parking activities of the 353 local authorities in England during the 2015/16 financial year.

The research comes after The Argus reported in November that parking generated more than £20 million across the period - with £9.6 million coming from street charges, £6.8 million from parking permits and £3.7 million from penalty charge notices. These figures came from an annual parking report by the council.

Soozie Campbell, chairwoman of Brighton and Hove Tourism Alliance, told The Argus parking was so bad she drove to Lewes to do her Christmas shopping.

The council has said parking profits are ringfenced for transport investment and mostly go towards funding bus passes for the over 60s and concessionary bus routes.

The latest national data – analysed for motoring research charity RAC Foundation by transport consultant David Leibling – comes from the statutory annual returns that councils make to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

The figure was calculated by taking income from parking charges and penalty notices and then deducting running costs to create a surplus amount. Nationally, income was up 4 per cent and costs fell by 2 per cent over the past year.

It represents a 9 per cent leap on the 2014/15 surplus of £693 million, and is 34 per cent higher than in 2011/12.

The largest totals were seen in London, with the capital's 33 local authorities accounting for 44% of the country's total. Westminster had the largest surplus (£55.9 million) followed by Kensington and Chelsea (£34.2 million) and Camden (£25.2 million).

RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: "These numbers might seem eye-wateringly large but in part they reflect the growing competition for space in many of our towns and cities.

"In 1995 there were only 21.4 million cars on Britain's roads; today there are 30.7 million."

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said its surplus from on-street parking operations was £12.7 million, based on its annual parking report. Including off-street parking, this rises to £15.3 million.

He added: "The figures quoted by the RAC are taken from an annual financial return to central government. The structure of this return means that not all expenses incurred by the council in our parking operations are included in the reported sums.

"For example, they do not include significant capital financing costs and contributions to a bad debt provision relating to unrecoverable PCN income."

He added: “The parking surplus reflects the fact that we are a large city, one of the most successful at attracting visitors and the fact that more and more residents are asking us to install residents’ parking schemes, which also means charging non-residents for parking.

"Eighty per cent of parking machines or pay-by-phone locations charge one pound an hour. Parking charges reflect heavy demand and are the fairest way of sharing out scarce space in the busiest areas.”

BRIGHTON IS STILL POPULAR, YES – BUT AT WHAT PRICE?

TODAY’S news really is a double whammy for Brighton and Hove.

On the one hand we have the city being named and shamed for making the most parking revenue from motorists of any council in England outside London.

The council may well dispute the figures from the RAC Foundation but whichever way you look at it, it is pulling in lots of money from drivers.

And then we have a second report naming the city as the fifth worst in the country in terms of the cost to business of having congested roads.

The research says traffic congestion is costing Brighton businesses a staggering £9 million a year in lost productivity.

The fact is our roads remain very popular and many will argue that’s a good thing, many will say the reverse.

One thing is for sure – Brighton and Hove remains hugely popular.

People still want to come to do their Christmas shopping regardless of the cost and the fact you may need to drive around for ages to find a parking space.

And the fact our car parks remain busy suggests people are not deterred, despite the costs and the reality that our roads are choked with traffic.

But there are inevitable knock-on effects to traffic clogging up our city.

Ian Collins is a manager at logistics company Brighton Carriers.

He said: “We were in Brighton for 35 years but we decided to move to Burgess Hill and one of the reasons was the traffic. It is much more beneficial now to be closer to the M23.

“The traffic situation in Brighton is pretty awful and some of the routes are really bad.

“It’s clearly got worse in recent years and that has had a big impact on delivery times for us.

“Sometimes we can get to London in the time it took us to get in and out of Brighton.”

Ian stressed it was just one of the reasons for the company moving out of the city but it should ring alarm bells among the chief decision makers at the council.

Cab drivers are not happy either.

John Streeter, vice-chairman of Streamline Taxis in Clifton Hill, said the city council should listen more to taxi drivers.

He said: “The taxi forum has been running for 19 years but it appears we only get consulted once the decision has been made. They could learn a lot by listening to some of us.”

Streamline chairman Dave Smith said it was obviously beneficial that taxis could use the bus lanes around Brighton and Hove but at busy times of the day even they become congested.

He said: “It has got a lot worse. On a Sunday the queues coming into the centre can go all the way back to Patcham and trying to get out of the city, the queue can literally start at the pier.”

Last month we reported that parking is so bad a tourism boss was travelling to neighbouring Lewes to do her Christmas shopping.

Soozie Campbell, chairwoman of Brighton and Hove Tourism Alliance, made the claim as the city’s annual parking report was released.

She said: “I don’t think I can think of anywhere more expensive than Brighton.

“There is no doubt people will go to other towns.

“I go to Lewes to do my Christmas shopping.

“It has all the vintage places and independent stores where you can get something a bit different and parking is free on Sundays.”

Other towns have also been quick to criticise Brighton for the state of the roads and the high cost of parking.

Last week’s Argus business section highlighted a campaign by Locate East Sussex – whose mission is to support growing businesses in the county – to knock Brighton.

It issued a press release claiming that some business owners who considered moving their company to Brighton had gone elsewhere.

One of them is Mike Dobell, co-owner of a thriving online menswear company, who chose Eastbourne.

He said: “When looking where to locate our head office, we considered many options but ruled out Brighton because of the lack of parking and exorbitant fees.

“As an online retailer, it is crucial that we have good access routes to London and the M25 as well as plentiful parking for our staff.

“We have a big yard space in Eastbourne which we use for both staff parking and for loading deliveries which we feel would not have been so readily available in Brighton, if at all.”

It may well be easy to knock Brighton over both traffic congestion and high parking charges.

But we should also remember that we remain a thriving city with a thriving economy.

CONGESTION COSTS CITY’S BUSINESSES £9M A YEAR

TRAFFIC congestion is costing Brighton businesses a staggering £9 million a year in lost productivity.

A new report found traffic in the city increases the time each vehicle spends on the road by 129 hours a year – more than 16 working days.

This equates to a cost of £9,334,4402 in time spent sitting in traffic for the 10,300 commercial vehicles operated in Brighton.

The research – conducted by the satellite navigation company TomTom – names the city as the fifth worst in the country in terms of the cost to business of congested roads.

Luke Johnson, the owner of Brighton Palace Pier, told The Argus there was no easy solution.

He said: “This reflects how busy and successful Brighton is as a place to live, work and visit.

“Better public transport does help as does improved co-ordination of roadworks.”

The research acknowledged this was part of a wider problem across the UK, not just in Brighton and Hove.

Beverley Wise, director UK and Ireland for TomTom Telematics, said: “Traffic congestion may be seen as a fact of life for every driver but, cumulatively, it is taking a heavy toll on the UK economy and this should not be accepted as an inevitability.

“Making the most of billable time is key to profitability for any business.

“Organisations that rely heavily on a mobile workforce must look for ways to maximise the time employees spend actually doing jobs by minimising time spent on the road.

“Through smarter planning, routing and scheduling, companies can help their drivers to better avoid traffic, which could not only have an impact on productivity but also customer service.”

The TomTom Traffic Index measures congestion on the road networks of 295 cities around the world.

It gives drivers detailed information on the impact congestion has on their city’s travel times.

Road authorities can use the TomTom Traffic Index to measure the performance of their network and pinpoint areas where traffic flow can be improved.

Over the years TomTom has built up a database with 14 trillion historical travel time measurements and we provide detailed and accurate traffic updates for drivers in 50 countries.

A council spokesman said: “We are pleased to note that we are the only place in the top 10 of this list where congestion has not gone up year on year.

“Brighton and Hove has some of the best bus services in the country and we are also working very hard to improve facilities for cyclists and pedestrians to encourage more drivers to leave their cars at home.”