Parking charges in central Brighton are likely to double this spring.

Brighton and Hove Council unveiled the proposals last night at a meeting of its transport forum. It had been expected the current charge of £1 an hour for voucher parking would increase to £1.20.

But the council announced its proposals will see the charges increased to £1 for 30 minutes or 50p for 20 minutes. No changes would be made to outer area charges. An alternative option would see voucher prices set at 75p for 30 minutes in the central area and an hour in the outer area, where the current charge is 50p.

Cabinet environment councillor John Ballance said the increase would be the first for three years and part of the charge would reflect inflation. But he added: "We strongly believe the price for parking on-street in the centre of Brighton should be at a premium to work in tandem with our sustainable transport

strategy.

"This would affect only 300 spaces, or ten per cent of the total town parking spaces available to the public. It also makes perfect sense to charge more than the return centre fare of £1.60 to encourage more people to travel to the town centre of Brighton by bus."

Coun Ballance said the council would listen carefully to what people said about the new charges before deciding what levels to apply. The North Laine shopping area would be included in the central zone for the first time. This contains 80 voucher spaces.

Seafront voucher spaces will be converted to pay and display and Madeira Drive spaces will reflect outer zone voucher charges. The council proposed to raise most other parking charges by around ten per cent. The news comes weeks before the introduction of a residents' parking scheme around the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Kemp Town, Brighton.

People will not have to pay for the Kemp Town permits for the first year as the cost is being met by the hospital trust. Russell Hicks, chairman of the Campaign for a Better Brighton and Hove, said: "This increase is excellent news - for Crawley. It means many people in the Mid Sussex area will be even more inclined to shop there rather than in Brighton."

Mr Hicks asked whether council staff would continue to get free parking and said: "The council should carry out the same policy and see if it can keep and attract staff."

Nearly all off-street car parks in Brighton are operated by National Car Parks. The council does control the London Road car park where prices have been pegged to encourage people to use it. The current minimum charge is 50p an hour. It also runs The Lanes car park, where charges have also been pegged after fears by traders they could drive shoppers away. They are 50p for 30 minutes and 90p for the first hour. Charges are now likely to rise by about ten per cent in all council parking areas.

Ann Townsend, of the London Road Traders' Association, said: "I feel it is not wise to increase charges to this extent. They might be shooting themselves in the foot. "Crawley parking charges are much cheaper than those in Brighton. Hastings set parking income targets and they didn't work. They had to change their minds. You can take people so far and they may say that they will not come to Brighton any more. We don't want to lose customers."

Opposition Tory council leader Geoffrey Theobald said: "We keep talking about trying to get business to the town. Yet these charges will be the kiss of death to some firms."

Chris Todd, of the South Downs Campaign Group, supported the proposed rises.

He added: "Too many cars are coming into Brighton and there are massive queues for car parks now, so people can't be all that put off by the charges."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.