Local Conservatives have welcomed a concession on traders’s permits in the city – but say cost is still too high.
TRADERS’ PARKING permits in Brighton and Hove cost £640 a year. The cost was more than doubled by the current Green Administration and an example of what many perceive as rip-off parking charges in the city.
This impacts on the costs of local traders and small businesses – builders, electricians, decorators, mobile hairdressers etc – who have to pass these costs onto householders having work done on or at their homes.
Little noticed at the time of the price hike was that the permits did not allow traders to park in a permit holders’ bay after 4pm. Most traders work until at least 5pm, and often later on emergency call-outs. A trader working at a customer’s house finds herself getting a ticket completing a job which goes on pass 4pm.
Councillor Graham Cox, Conservative Party Candidate for Hove and Portslade 2015, has welcomed the recently agreed concession to put the restriction on traders’ permits in resdients’ bays back to 5pm from December 1.
Graham said: “This will make things a little bit easier for our hard-working local traders, and if you are having work done on your house the tradesmen and women will not all have to disappear at 4pm without completing the job.
“The Conservatives are committed to ending rip-off charges. There remains a strong case for reducing this excessive tax on local businesses. Brighton and Hove charges far more than other authorities, and almost certainly would make up for any shortfall in revenue by selling more permits if the cost is reduced to a fairer level.”
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