Brighton street rakes in parking fines

6:40pm Friday 18th May 2012 in park the charges

Park the Charges Park the Charges

A single seafront street that raked in £100,000 in parking tickets has been named one of the most lucrative for councils in the country.

Almost 11 tickets a day were handed out in Madeira Drive, Brighton, last year bringing in fines worth a staggering £100,225.

It has now been revealed to be the third highest money-maker in the country outside of London.

Madeira Drive was only beaten by the High Street in Slough, which brought in £217,506, and Alum Rock Road, in Birmingham, which raked in £154,780.

Steve Percy, of People’s Parking Protest, said Madeira Drive is the “fattest cash cow” in the city.

He said: “It is an awful lot of money. People that park illegally can’t complain and should not complain.

“Some of these will be parking on single yellow or double yellow lines or overstaying.

“But also maybe the council is not looking after the tourists enough.

“All parking is a cash cow but that is probably the fattest cash cow there is.”

There are 363 Pay and Display bays along Madeira Drive.

Brighton and Hove City Council bosses recently caused controversy by upping the daily parking tariff on the road from £10 to £20.

Related links

New tariff

Following a public outcry and backing for our Park The Charges campaign, the local authority plans to introduce a new eight-hour tariff for £15 in the seafront high zone – which should come into force before August.

The council said the number of fares have dropped in recent years from 168,000 in 2004 to 109,000 last year.

However, Brighton and Hove residents should count themselves lucky that wardens in the city are not as busy as their counterparts in the capital.

A Freedom of Information request by a national newspaper revealed that Southampton Road in London saw £1,198,870 worth of fines issued by wardens and CCTV cameras.

A council spokeswoman said: “Madeira Drive is a very long road with 363 Pay and Display bays that are in very high demand due to their location on the seafront.

“The vast majority of motorists park correctly in Madeira Drive and do not receive a Penalty Charge Notice.

“In fact the number of Penalty Charge Notices issued in Brighton and Hove has fallen year on year. In the latest annual parking report just 109,000 were issued, down from a peak in 2004 of 168,000.

“This shows that drivers are getting used to the Controlled Parking Zones which is helping to keep traffic moving.”

Comments(23)

allykatz says...
7:53pm Fri 18 May 12

At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.

I suppose it provides jobs to the socially inept.

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Vigilia says...
9:07pm Fri 18 May 12

But the beloved travellers and local kerb-squatting vagrants pay not a penny.
Ah, but it's "firm but fair."

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John Steed says...
9:13pm Fri 18 May 12

if people observed the rules and took notice of ther time them the council would make diddly squat, best way to show disgust at parking charges is to ensure you do not get tickets

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Hove Actually says...
9:32pm Fri 18 May 12

You have to live with parking as a way for the lying councils to raise taxes without increasing council tax too much BUT it annoys me when they spout rubbish about it helping to “This shows that drivers are getting used to the Controlled Parking Zones which is helping to keep traffic moving as this and the last council have done nothing in this regard in fact the opposite is true
anyone who thinks different needs to try and drive across our city some time

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Hard times says...
10:38pm Fri 18 May 12

It really is not hard to play by the rules and not get a ticket.

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leobrighton says...
11:13pm Fri 18 May 12

Even though those fined will have broken the rules they will still be annoyed. If they are visitors they will probably not return for a few years if ever and will spread the word. Could cost the city dear in the long run.

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allykatz says...
11:32pm Fri 18 May 12

Hard times wrote:
It really is not hard to play by the rules and not get a ticket.
I have zone z parking permit and a nice parking spot I don't get tickets. That is not the point, £25 for parking for over 4 hours in ncp and ncp run the wardens. Perhaps when the "rules" include you hopping to work on one leg you'll happily spout the same nonsense, blindly obeying. These are "rules" that hurt tourism, trade for small business and rip off honest tradesmen.

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Brightonlad86 says...
6:10am Sat 19 May 12

When I first past my driving test I parked in a bay, brought a ticket and had a good day out. Come back to a car with a PCN. Did I over run my ticket? No... I made an honest mistake of parking on the wrong side of the road. (1 side permit holders, 1 P&D). Obviously I appealed, to my expense, and got nowhere.

Ok, so I may have been stupid not checking all the relatively small signs (you can't read them if driving) but, growing up I always thought, if there was a parking meter you can pay to park.

I'm sure plenty of tourists, new drivers and people who don't feel the need to read every sign on the street before parking will get caught out by this.

Punish the lawbreakers by all means, but NO ONE should be able to make a profit on genuine human error.

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BrightonHoveboy says...
7:06am Sat 19 May 12

Stupid Council spokeswoman: it is because people are NOT COMING TO BRIGHTON. These people were called TOURISTS. A word for the Brighton History Book

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john5001 says...
7:11am Sat 19 May 12

its killed brighton . nobody come down anymore

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cvs says...
8:17am Sat 19 May 12

Like everything else in this country, parking signs are designed to be complicated, vague and confusing all the better to catch out the old, the unwary, visitors or the just plain careless.

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JoG says...
8:44am Sat 19 May 12

allykatz wrote:
At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.

I suppose it provides jobs to the socially inept.
Really? Are you also the person who would then berate someone for sitting on their backside and doing nothing all day, whilst claiming benefits? With people like you around, I'd hate to be a traffic warden! They put up with the most horrendous behaviour from members of the public who are stupid enough not to look at and read signs whcih clearly indicate where they can park. Who's the inept in this situation?

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fred clause says...
10:42am Sat 19 May 12

allykatz wrote:
Hard times wrote: It really is not hard to play by the rules and not get a ticket.
I have zone z parking permit and a nice parking spot I don't get tickets. That is not the point, £25 for parking for over 4 hours in ncp and ncp run the wardens. Perhaps when the "rules" include you hopping to work on one leg you'll happily spout the same nonsense, blindly obeying. These are "rules" that hurt tourism, trade for small business and rip off honest tradesmen.
Ncp hasnt run the wardens for years and as others have said instead of rushing everywhere if people took a minute to check where they have parked or that there permits or p&d's are displayed properly they wont get fined its not the wardens fault people are too busy to check before they leave their vehicles.

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davyboy says...
11:14am Sat 19 May 12

John Steed wrote:
if people observed the rules and took notice of ther time them the council would make diddly squat, best way to show disgust at parking charges is to ensure you do not get tickets
totally agree. if you choose to ignore the regulations, however ridiculous they may be, then don't complain when you get a ticket. if everyone played by the rules, then no fines would be given out. it is only because people 'take a chance' that these tickets are given out. whilst i would agree these charges are quite high, i believe the idea is that there will be a constant turnover of spaces, with people only staying a couple of hours, and not all day. if you forget the time, and overstay, tough luck!!!

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mimseycal says...
11:24am Sat 19 May 12

If you are required to walk around with £20.00 worth of loose coins in your pocket then perhaps the oversight isn't as thoughtless as some of the comments here would lead one to believe.

Fair enough, one must observe rules, however draconian or shylockian these rules might be. However when these rules also imply that you must first reinforce all coin pockets ...

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Goldenwight says...
11:48am Sat 19 May 12

One point which all of the above posts seem to have overlooked- we have a pretty good bus service around here? Just a thought, peeps.

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mimseycal says...
11:55am Sat 19 May 12

A local bus service, no matter how good, is not going to be a large magnet for day trippers.

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HJarrs says...
7:25pm Sat 19 May 12

Alum Rock Road. That takes me back! I will remember not to park, there. Actually, it was so dire I have not been back in years. For those who knock Brighton, have a week in Birmingham!

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mike_on_the_mike says...
9:46pm Sat 19 May 12

john5001 wrote:
its killed brighton . nobody come down anymore
Funny, as driving out of Brighton this morning there was a queue of traffic from Preston Park all the way back to the end of the M23 of people driving in to Brighton. Where were they all going then?

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
10:05am Sun 20 May 12

The marina. Free parking, shops and restaurants.

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McGinty says...
10:09am Sun 20 May 12

£6 for 2 hours, £3.50 for one hour in the town centre, from 9am til 8pm, maximum stay 2 hours. If you need to park the whole 11 hours it would cost £33.50 and you'd have to move the car 5 times and carry a load of loose change around. Easier to leave the car in one place, get a ticket (£35) and pay for that online. When the charges for parking almost match the fine I'm afraid the disincentive is void.

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davyboy says...
1:14pm Sun 20 May 12

mimseycal wrote:
A local bus service, no matter how good, is not going to be a large magnet for day trippers.
it would be attractive if there was decent P&R.

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mimseycal says...
2:43pm Sun 20 May 12

Doubt it davyboy ... when you come down with your kids, the MiL and a couple of bags of assorted accoutrements, for a day at the seaside, the last thing you want is to have to lug all that on and off a train, on and off a bus there and then back again at the end of the day.

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