Dear Brighton & Hove City Council,

By the time you read this, I, like many before me, will be living in an area of the city burdened with parking restrictions. And despite a council-tax bill of more than £1,200 and an address three miles from the centre of town, I’ll be expected to pay for the privilege of parking outside a house that I own and live in. I am, at the time of trying to meet my print deadline, apparently powerless to stop the work trucks, pneumatic drills, bay painting and ticket-machine installation but am, editor willing, taking the opportunity to let you know that despite your insistence on bending over local residents and shafting them a large one up the hoopla, we’re not all stupid enough to take it lying down.

First, dear Council, thanks so much for your open letter to all concerned in March 2009, outlining our options relating to the parking scheme proposed for this area. May I also take the opportunity to thank you for your apparent concern and consideration relating to the possible displacement of vehicles into our residential area should we vote against the introduction of the proposed scheme in these roads. After all, you’ve carved up just about everywhere else in the name of greed so why should we be any different? I would, however, appreciate your response to the issue of a number of inconsistencies and irregularities that have come to my attention from the minutes of the Environment Cabinet Meeting held on February 19, 2009. Agenda Item 112, note 4.13, states: ”In view of the overall support for a parking scheme in the Preston Park area… it is recommended that a scheme should go ahead to the final decision. It is possible to go ahead with the exclusion of the three roads that voted against the scheme.”

Forgive my attention to detail in noting that out of the 11 roads polled, five have voted against the scheme, not three. These are Millers Road, Inwood Crescent, Compton Road, Kingsley Road and The Drove. According to published figures, Reigate Road is a precise 50/50 split and therefore is divided in its decision. Although you have polled a section of Dyke Road, the residents of which have voted in favour of a scheme, Dyke Road is not part of the proposed scheme as it was long ago shafted in the name of council cash and has been living with parking restrictions for many years.

Oh, you mighty ones who sit in thy great council chamber – I am neither scientist nor professional mathematician, but I would assume that if five roads voted in favour, five against, and one split, then surely the vote is an even divide across the proposed area. Of course, if you were to take Dyke Road out of the equation, as it is not part of the scheme, the results would be against the introduction and against the council’s proposals. I invite your comments on these irregularities and ask that you explain why the residents of Dyke Road were part of the survey when they are not to be included in this scheme; were I to invest time in conspiracy theories, I might assume you invited their input to serve your intentions.

I do, recognising where credit is due, applaud your sometime transparency in the public access to these minutes whereby in Item 112, Appendix C you state that in response to Question 1: “Are you in favour of a parking scheme in your area? (49.6 per cent said Yes; 49.6 per cent said No).” Itself a clear indication of 50 per cent support and certainly not “overall” support as stated in the minutes.

As a resident of this city and a contributor to both the local and national economies through extensive taxation, I have not failed to notice that these figures presented at the meeting clearly do not offer up “overall support for the scheme”, and yet the council judgement is to press forward and do what the merry hell it likes irrespective. I would welcome your honest analysis of the data presented to the meeting in February and your interpretation of these figures, but hold out little hope, as honesty is clearly not your policy.

Furthermore, concerned that your supposed three streets have voted against the scheme, Item 112, note 4.14 states clearly that if Millers Road, Compton Road and Inwood Crescent were removed from the scheme, the new boundary would present even more council-friendly figures “within the boundary not including the above roads, 62 per cent of respondents support the scheme, whereas 37 per cent are opposed. 0.5 per cent had no opinion or did not answer”. I believe this process to be termed ‘success farming’, where you manipulate data to serve your original proposition if the real results are not as you had hoped. I welcome your analysis of this section of the council’s minutes.

In summary, your letter sent to The Occupier in March of this year is therefore evasive and dishonest and your information is littered with scaremongering tactics. You have only listed three roads that oppose the scheme when actually the results say 5.5 streets in this area are in direct opposition to the scheme. Your enclosed plan, complete with shaded “area approved for resident parking scheme”, includes streets that have voted against the scheme, namely The Drove and Kingsley Road. This is not a transparent process and therefore dishonest.

You go on to suggest that should we vote against the scheme again, further detailed consultation and design in this area of the city would not be possible for “several years in the future”. Don’t be ridiculous. This has certainly not been the case in areas of Brighton & Hove that have within the past five years rejected parking schemes. In short periods of times following the introduction of such schemes, additional consultation has taken place and schemes swiftly introduced because this whole cash-creating fiasco has precious little to do with the public and everything to do with revenue.

I would finally ask the following questions: why did you ask local residents to vote again when we had voted a clear and resounding No. Did you ask all the streets who voted Yes to vote again, just to make sure? Did you inform the residents of Kingsley Road that 65 per cent of them voted against the scheme but you are introducing this anyway as you have decided that, as Kingsley Road sits in between two roads that voted Yes, those residents can go f**k themselves?  

This isn’t the first time I have written with these questions. In March I wrote to councillors Ann Norman*, Amy Kennedy*, Tony Redmond*, Pat Drake*, Kevin Allen*, Ken Norman*, Juliet McCaffery* and Jenny Rowlands*. None of them took the time to respond. Mark Prior* responded asking me to write my concerns to the council again stating clearly that I was making a complaint. How clear do you want it? Let me be honest, councillors – when it comes down to it, representatives of Brighton & Hove, you actually do not care a hoot about the people who live here. Just look at the evidence.

To you the reader – this letter isn’t about a parking scheme in my road or your road or her road or their road. It’s about a council that is a lying, manipulative, scheming, underhand, deceitful, resident-shafting bullshitter. How can we ever trust them on anything? Shame on you Brighton & Hove.

*These names have not been changed so as not to protect the guilty.