How long until we can vote the Greens OUT?

[BLOCK F]

Hopefully,no others cities/towns will be as daft as 'righton Brighton and vote the Greens into power again.

 

[Peter Grummit]

The missing component to Brighton's transport startegy is a decent Park and Ride service. The problem is finding the right sites.

The Council does have the opportunity to negotiate a Quality Bus Partnership with Go-Ahead. Other authorities have secured bus company investment eg new vehicles, or contributions towards infrastructure as a condition for bus priority measures. I haven't seen any evidence that B+H Council is trying to negotiate such concessions.

The monopoly that Go-Ahead has is a problem for fares, but it's worth knowing what the best deal for your trip is. Here's an analysis done by Lewes Travelman:

Brighton and Hove bus company increased its prices last week by up to 11.5%, the third increase in 18 months. According to the Brighton Argus, recent accounts show the firm made a profit of £5.8 million in 2011/12.



PRICE RISES IN DETAIL


SHORT HOP £1.50 to £1.60 (6.75% increase)



SINGLE £2.20 to £2.30 (4.5%)



ONE-DAY SAVER – This is a ticket that will allow you to ride on any Brighton and Hove bus for the day, including buses to Ringmer and Tunbridge Wells. There are various ways to buy it

1) smartcard Increased from £3.50 to £3.90 (11.4% increase), ( only valid on Brighton and Hove buses)

2) m-ticket ( a ticket downloaded onto your mobile phone), £3.50 (new) (only valid on Brighton and Hove buses

3) scratch-off tickets bought from Lewes post office, Lewes Tourist office, or Leicester Road shop £4.40 (valid on all buses out of Lewes)

4) You can’t buy a saver ticket on the bus any more. Instead you have to buy an explorer ticket for £7 This allows you to ride on any bus in the south east of England run by any company, but you can buy it cheaper on buses run by other companies, such as the Lewes local buses)



NEW Two-day saver – £6 (m-ticket only)



NEW Three-day saver – £9 (m-ticket only)



SEVEN DAYS saver £15 m-ticket £17.50 key smartcard £22 scratch-off tickets



28 DAYS saverv£65 m-ticket £65 key smartcard £75 scratch-off tickets



90 DAYS saver £160 (m-ticket and smartcard) 12 months £490 (smartcard only)



CITYSAVER bought on the bus increased £4.40 to £4.60 (4.5%) (Travel from Lewes to Brighton and around Brighton) It is cheaper to buy an ordinary saver (see above) if you are not buying on the bus.



So the moral is- unless you are going only a short distance, don’t buy your ticket on the bus!



PG

 

[Gwylan]

The missing component to Brighton's transport startegy is a decent Park and Ride service. The problem is finding the right sites.
PG

It's not true to say the council isn't looking at Park and Ride sites, it earmarked a couple of places but residents protested too much so the plan was shelved - the NIMBY problem is a persistent one in B&H.

Besides,we had a Park and Ride system in Brighton for some years - it was scrapped because no-one used it.

Even now, we have several P&R sites for the Amex and yet the club is having to spend a fortune on CPZs in Coldean and Moulsecoomb because motorists don't like using them.

Park and rides work in other places but they don't seem viable in Brighton,

I disagree with you on bus fares: my M-ticket along Lewes Rd last week cost me £3 for all-day travel (and would be just £3.50 for all-day anywhere) - - that's not that bad.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

It's not true to say the council isn't looking at Park and Ride sites, it earmarked a couple of places but residents protested too much so the plan was shelved - the NIMBY problem is a persistent one in B&H.

I'm assuming you're referring to the proposed one at Patcham ? At the time I was one of the residents who would have had this car park on my doorstep. I wasn't actually against the idea as such but the council refused to provide details on how they planned to improve the junction to be able to take the extra traffic ( it was already congested at peak times ), how they would limit the affect on residents in Vale Avenue, Church Hill and Court Close, where they would provide new allotments to cover the loss of the Patcham allotments and how people who lost their home would be compensated.

Despite numerous meetings and letters not a single councillor was able to provide these details - instead they just kept claiming they had to get a plan in quickly to ensure they got EU / government funding. In short they wanted the outline plans passed before they had addressed any of the serious issues. Because of this I became a Nimby and campaigned against the Patcham Park and Ride. So next time you see Labour banging on about no park and ride facilities in B&H remind them that they only have themselves to blame for trying to railroad a scheme through without actually doing any of the work to solve the many issues.

 

[The Large One]

The Council does have the opportunity to negotiate a Quality Bus Partnership with Go-Ahead. Other authorities have secured bus company investment eg new vehicles, or contributions towards infrastructure as a condition for bus priority measures. I haven't seen any evidence that B+H Council is trying to negotiate such concessions.

PG

The Quality Bus Partnership has been in place for eight years.

http://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/Data/Environment%20Committee/20050317/Agenda/$Item%20169%20LTP%20Allocation%202005-06.doc.pdf

 

[The Large One]

I'm assuming you're referring to the proposed one at Patcham ? At the time I was one of the residents who would have had this car park on my doorstep. I wasn't actually against the idea as such but the council refused to provide details on how they planned to improve the junction to be able to take the extra traffic ( it was already congested at peak times ), how they would limit the affect on residents in Vale Avenue, Church Hill and Court Close, where they would provide new allotments to cover the loss of the Patcham allotments and how people who lost their home would be compensated.

Despite numerous meetings and letters not a single councillor was able to provide these details - instead they just kept claiming they had to get a plan in quickly to ensure they got EU / government funding. In short they wanted the outline plans passed before they had addresses any of the serious issues. Because of this I became a Nimby and campaigned against the Patcham Park and Rise. So next time you see Labour banging on about no park and ride facilities in B&H remind them that they only have themselves to blame for trying to railroad a scheme through without actually doing any of the work to solve the many issues.

Most of these schemes - any schemes - won't even get the 'councillor' stage if they can't get past the 'officer' stage first.

You're probably quite right that it may have been a ruse merely to get more funding, but (and I believe I remember this - about 10-12 years ago, and fell over because it was north of the bypass?) it sounds like they were jumping ahead by promoting/considering a scheme that they couldn't get to work in the first place.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Most of these schemes - any schemes - won't even get the 'councillor' stage if they can't get past the 'officer' stage first.

You're probably quite right that it may have been a ruse merely to get more funding, but (and I believe I remember this - about 10-12 years ago?) it sounds like they were jumping ahead by promoting/considering a scheme that they couldn't get to work in the first place.

Yes, that was the one. Unfortunately, if that's how councils work ( and I mean of any colour ), then cynics like myself will find it very hard to ever support anything they put forward. This episode left a very bitter taste in the mouth and it felt we were fighting something that had already been decided behind closed doors with a secret handshake.

 

[Gwylan]

I'm assuming you're referring to the proposed one at Patcham ? At the time I was one of the residents who would have had this car park on my doorstep. I wasn't actually against the idea as such but the council refused to provide details on how they planned to improve the junction to be able to take the extra traffic ( it was already congested at peak times ), how they would limit the affect on residents in Vale Avenue, Church Hill and Court Close, where they would provide new allotments to cover the loss of the Patcham allotments and how people who lost their home would be compensated.

Despite numerous meetings and letters not a single councillor was able to provide these details - instead they just kept claiming they had to get a plan in quickly to ensure they got EU / government funding. In short they wanted the outline plans passed before they had addressed any of the serious issues. Because of this I became a Nimby and campaigned against the Patcham Park and Ride. So next time you see Labour banging on about no park and ride facilities in B&H remind them that they only have themselves to blame for trying to railroad a scheme through without actually doing any of the work to solve the many issues.

Thanks for the insight.

From a distance, it looked like sites had been identified and there was a 'not in my back yard' attitude. It seems it wasn't quite as clear-cut as that. However, while I agree with you about the political opportunism demonstrated by Labour, it seems there's something fundamentally wrong with a system where funding is only available for a project within a specific time-frame, it's a situation that's liable to lead to money being spent on the wrong projects and seems a crazy way to carry on.

 

[osgood]

Hopefully,no others cities/towns will be as daft as 'righton Brighton and vote the Greens into power again.

they only got in by default, due to the apathy of the electorate,in the wake of 13 years of New Labour, and many MPs being exposed as fiddlers people wont make the same mistake again