Parking charges are the last straw for strugging Brighton traders (From The Argus)

Parking charges are the last straw for strugging Brighton traders

11:31am Monday 8th February 2010

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Motorists have already criticised Brighton and Hove City Council for its plans to raise car parking charges once again.

But traders are also unhappy about the increase, which is due in April, and say they, too, will be penalised as the higher charges drive shoppers away from the city.

Last year, the council made a £7.4 million profit from motorists.

Yet, in April, the parking tariffs are expected to increase again, adding £320,000 to next year’s council budget.

Harm

The charges were increased in March last year and Brighton and Hove already has the highest parking costs outside of London.

Stuart Wilkie, who owns children’s toy shop Charlie Barley in Meeting House Lane and is the spokesman for the Lanes Business Network, said raising the parking charges again would do traders more harmthan good.

He said: “We were under the impression that this administration was looking at a complementary transport system.

“Clearly, that’s not happening because the motorist is being penalised.

“Anything which stops people coming into town, or which stops business and trade, is a bad thing.

“Raising parking charges is something else that does that.

“The council’s timing, considering the economic uncertainty, is not fair.”

The latest rise will see the price of short-term stays of up to two hours increase in two of the four council-run car parks in the city centre.

The car park that will be most affected is London Road, which has recently been refurbished.

Resident permits, on-street pay-and-display and seafront parking spaces will also have their tariffs increased.

For traders in London Road and North Laine the rise in car parking charges is not at all welcome news.

Sharon Thomas, chairwoman of the North Laine Traders’ Association, said the price hike would put people off coming into the city centre, while Christina Summers, from the Another London Road campaign, which is working to revitalise the area, said the workers would be most affected.

She added: “More people will seek out the free parking roads, which are already at saturation point.

Residents find it difficult to find a place to park.”

Mr Wilkie said it was difficult to gauge how rises in parking charges would affect footfall because people still parked their cars in Churchill Square and walked down into The Lanes.

But he added that the increase in parking tariffs would change people’s shopping habits.

He said: “It will make people think twice about coming into Brighton in the first place.

“I had a customer who came in last weekend who had last been in the shop in August.

As she left she said, ‘I will see you in six months, probably in the summer’.

“I told her she didn’t have to leave it so long but she said the hassle and expense of parking meant she avoided coming into Brighton so often.

“The amount of money people spend on parking, before they even start to shop, takes the pleasure out of visiting the city.”

Mr Wilkie said the snow and ice meant January had been a bad month for traders because people could not get into the city centre safely.

He added: “Nothing was done to compensate that.

“Whatever the council can do to encourage more trade into the city this year needs to be done.

“This year, a lot more people are considering spending their holiday in Britain.

If they come to Sussex, get in their cars and drive to Brighton, which we want them to do, it should be encouraged by regulating parking charges.

Balance

“The council makes so much money through parking.

“It really has got to balance what it does and give reasons for why it is charging so much.

“I do not think we have seen the results of the investment from the money it has made out of car parking.

“People would probably be more responsive if they didn’t just see it as a cash cow.”

Click here for a full list of the parking charge changes

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