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Standards & Complaints Brighton & Hove City Council FREEPOST SEA2560 Brighton BN1 1ZWDear Sir or Madam
Complaint about London Road Residents Parking Scheme Public Consultation
In 2009 the Parking Strategy Team of the Environment Directorate invited the views of residents of the area in which I live through a consultation which closed on 18 July. My complaint is that the consultation process was flawed. As a result it has produced misleading results, leading to an unsound decision and an unfair outcome. My reasons are as follows:
1 Lack of contextual information
The first thing many residents living in the area north of the railway line knew about the proposals was when they received the questionnaire and leaflet. Many people were unaware that residents south of the railway line had been campaigning for a controlled parking zone for years. The leaflet made no reference to this or to the potential for displacement, although the council has considerable experience of similar schemes elsewhere in the city.
The leaflet accompanying the questionnaire made no reference to other schemes planned around the area, for example Preston Park Avenue, which were likely to have an impact on parking. Council officers knew about these schemes at the time of the consultation but did not tell us about them. We were asked to comment without being given the bigger picture. If people had known this it might have affected the way they responded.
2 Lack of transparency about how our responses would be used
The leaflet described the exercise as a consultation and the form as a questionnaire, the purpose of which was to let me register my views. Instead, the questionnaire turned out to be a ballot paper and my response was treated as a vote.
Residents were not told prior to the closing date that this would happen. As a result we were misled about how our responses would be used. Voting on a specific issue is quite different from expressing views on a range of questions and people would have responded differently if they had known.
3 Implementing a scheme for an area different from the one we were consulted about
The council consulted on a layout plan for an area around London Road station. The leaflet presented the scheme as a single zone for the whole area. Residents were not told that the council planned to subdivide the area or implement the scheme on a street by street basis. The scheme now under development is not same as the one on which the council consulted in July 2009. As a result, the impact on the streets left out of the proposed scheme will be quite different. The council did not say in the leaflet or at the exhibition at Calvary Church that this would happen.
I therefore had no way of knowing when I submitted my return that a scheme with potential for significant displacement would be introduced close to my road but not including it. If the council had been open about its plans to do this it is reasonable to suppose that other residents would have responded more favourably to the scheme.
4 Power of veto given to some residents but not to others
Residents of Springfield Road, Florence Road and the southern end of Southdown Avenue asked, through a deputation to the Lead Member for the Environment, for their streets to be included in the scheme. A second round of consultation followed with residents north of the railway line, who were asked whether they objected, or did not object, to this proposal.
This process effectively allowed people in the area north of Florence Road to prevent streets other than their own having a residents parking scheme. The original consultation process did not give the right of veto to one group of residents over the quality of life of any other group. The situation is now that a majority of residents in Springfield Road, Florence Road and the southern end of Southdown Avenue want to be included in the scheme but residents to the north of them have been given the power to say they can’t. This is both inconsistent and unfair. The council officers responsible for setting up this process have acted unreasonably by favouring one group over another.
Conclusion
This evidence clearly demonstrates that this consultation process was poorly executed and it follows that its results are invalid. Decisions based on the results are therefore unsound and undemocratic.
In recognition of this, I want the council not to implement the London Road Station parking scheme as it stands but to re-consult residents before July 2010 using a process that is transparent, open, reliable and fair. Failing that, I want the council to extend the London Road station residents parking scheme to include Springfield Road, Florence Road and the southern end of Southdown Avenue in accordance with the wishes of the majority of residents in those streets.
Yours faithfully
