Parking in Coldean - residents not happy.

[Triggaaar]

However, as we've seen from one or two posters on here (and the obvious hundreds of cars that do park there), many don't care. They'll park there because they can.

Of course, but we shouldn't be paying £1m a year for a solution.

 

[Giraffe]

Amusing that there are no similar grumbles from Falmer residents.....

 

[The Large One]

Of course, but we shouldn't be paying £1m a year for a solution.

All the while it's legal to park your car (irrespective of any inconvenience), the people who do this aren't going to consider it their problem. If you have this mindset, extra P&R sites aren't going to be the answer. Even making the Uni and Bridge car parks cheaper isn't going to cut it, as parking Coldean or Moulsecoomb is free.

I agree £1m p.a. is horrific, so how should it be resolved?

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Was it just a coincidence that no cones were put out on the day of the Barnsley game ?

 

[brightonlass2009]

Pretty sure I saw that bus getting stuck in Forest Road as I was walking down from further up the at the Barnsley game.

I noticed on the day that, as Postman Pat says, the cones present last season were not in place, so with no yellow lines an occasional visitor wouldn't have even known not to park there for the buses.

Cones/yellow lines seem more sensible than the more drastic alternative.

I can't see why people are surprised about the parking that's going on. A lot of people who have splashed out on season tickets, food, drink, merchandise etc don't want to pay an extra tenner (minimum) a match to park, and they will park in the nearest free place and walk half an hour until such time as they can't, nor can you blame them for that if they are doing it responsibly.

I wonder if the 'Coldean Residents Association' have canvassed views from the pub, chippy, bookie and shops that have probably quadrupled their turnover.

I live in Coldean and nobody in my family has a problem with people parking sensibly and legally around the area during the football games. The problem we do have is with them parked on the corners, the grass verges, the pavements and over driveways. That is when it becomes dangerous and annoying.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Of course, but we shouldn't be paying £1m a year for a solution.

I think that's the key here. Brighton (city, not club) is benefiting in all sorts of ways from the Amex directly and indirectly. I think the council is showing signs of taking all the positives for granted, and doing little out of their own pocket to address some of the attendant issues and just load all the costs on the club assuming it is 'mega-rich', which we're not anyway.

And as far as the tiresome view of people like TLO is concerned, I imagine it's not that people 'don't care', it's more that alternatives take them either a lot more time which they don't have for family or other reasons, or cost a lot more. So given the option of quite legally parking for free and walking, they will until they can't. I could have told the club that five years ago if they'd asked, but as we know some of the predicted travel behaviour was inaccurate.

These sorts of things are easy to glibly trot out when you were never going to drive, don't have to, and have an easier cheap/free alternative, and slightly more complex when it is one of your main options for certain matches.

 

[Tooting Gull]

dblpost

 

[Tooting Gull]

I live in Coldean and nobody in my family has a problem with people parking sensibly and legally around the area during the football games. The problem we do have is with them parked on the corners, the grass verges, the pavements and over driveways. That is when it becomes dangerous and annoying.

I think that is a very fair and sensible view, that also takes into account how helpful it is for other Albion fans to park there on a matchday.

And I think we're all sorry that the situation is undermined by people doing the irresponsible things you cite (and sadly I fear that does occasionally happen, which could end up cocking this up for everyone).

 

[brightonlass2009]

I think that is a very fair and sensible view, that also takes into account how helpful it is for other Albion fans to park there on a matchday.

And I think we're all sorry that the situation is undermined by people doing the irresponsible things you cite (and sadly I fear that does occasionally happen, which could end up cocking this up for everyone).

I think the worst roads for irresponsible things is rushlake, middleton and forest road. Sadly I live around there so see a lot of it. It does annoy me how the coldean residents association seem to tarnished every brighton fan with the same brush. As long as it's legal and sensible it is fine. What they need to do is focus on the irresponsible parking, find someway to eradicate that and everybody is happy!

 

[sully]

I hadn't realised that. There's much more than 20% parking on match day so the club will have to fork out

But you said earlier there's c.10,000 cars in Coldean belonging to residents, so that would mean 2,000 CARS parking on match days in addition to the residents cars. Bearing in mind the number of people using the trains and busses (and other parking areas), and that the majority of those additional cars would have more than 1 occupant, I can't believe that there are really that many additional cars parked in Coldean on a matchday.

Of course, as I don't park there myself, I can't be certain. It just seems unlikely.

 

[sully]

I think the worst roads for irresponsible things is rushlake, middleton and forest road. Sadly I live around there so see a lot of it. It does annoy me how the coldean residents association seem to tarnished every brighton fan with the same brush. As long as it's legal and sensible it is fine. What they need to do is focus on the irresponsible parking, find someway to eradicate that and everybody is happy!

In the Goldstone days, there were often announcements for folk to go and move their cars because they were causing an obstruction. It they're not moved in a certain time frame, tow them. I doubt many drivers would continue to park illegally if they knew they'd have to get their car back from the police pound after the game.

 

[brightonlass2009]

But you said earlier there's c.10,000 cars in Coldean belonging to residents, so that would mean 2,000 CARS parking on match days in addition to the residents cars. Bearing in mind the number of people using the trains and busses (and other parking areas), and that the majority of those additional cars would have more than 1 occupant, I can't believe that there are really that many additional cars parked in Coldean on a matchday.

Of course, as I don't park there myself, I can't be certain. It just seems unlikely.

C. 10000 cars in coldean? Where did you get that information from? Are there even that many houses in coldean?

 

[Tooting Gull]

But you said earlier there's c.10,000 cars in Coldean belonging to residents, so that would mean 2,000 CARS parking on match days in addition to the residents cars. Bearing in mind the number of people using the trains and busses (and other parking areas), and that the majority of those additional cars would have more than 1 occupant, I can't believe that there are really that many additional cars parked in Coldean on a matchday.

Of course, as I don't park there myself, I can't be certain. It just seems unlikely.

Much as I don't want it to change, the council have the perfect opportunities coming up to do a proper survey comparison for this season, and the increased capacity effects.

Do a Saturday with either an away match, or no match (eg Sep 15th, or Sep 22) and compare to a home Saturday match (Brum at 5.30pm, or Boro on 20th October if you want a 3pm kick-off). Then do the same for a weekday evening with no match, and compare to either Sheff Wed on 15th or Ipswich on 2nd October. That would give you a pretty good idea within a month to six weeks.

 

[sully]

C. 10000 cars in coldean? Where did you get that information from? Are there even that many houses in coldean?

Look at Gwylan's post on the previous page. Most houses have more than 1 car. (seems to be based on 4000 homes at 2.5 cars per home, which is probably a bit high)

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

But you said earlier there's c.10,000 cars in Coldean belonging to residents, so that would mean 2,000 CARS parking on match days in addition to the residents cars. Bearing in mind the number of people using the trains and busses (and other parking areas), and that the majority of those additional cars would have more than 1 occupant, I can't believe that there are really that many additional cars parked in Coldean on a matchday.

Of course, as I don't park there myself, I can't be certain. It just seems unlikely.

Sorry, the threshold was 10%- from the committee report:

A clause in the existing s106 relating to monitoring of spectator traffic set out
a requirement for monitoring of parking levels within Moulsecoomb on both
match days and non match days, during the week and at weekends to
ascertain the level of displaced parking. The agreement requires that
independent traffic surveys are carried out, the results of which are reported
to the Club and Brighton & Hove Highway Authority. A threshold of a 10%
increase in parked vehicles on match days compared to non match days was
also imposed. At the end of each the season the parking counts are to be
scrutinised to ascertain the % increase in parked vehicles on match days
when compared with non match days, a penalty clause of £5,000 is sought for
10% increase and a further £5,000 per percentage point increase beyond
10%. The funds are then proposed to be put towards the cost of implementing
a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) in this area.
The stadium is yet to be in operation for a full season however a number of
parking surveys have been carried out and based on the information received,
a penalty clause of approximately £75,000 is likely to be sought at the end of
the season if the Club were to continue operations under the current approval.

 

[Gwylan]

But you said earlier there's c.10,000 cars in Coldean belonging to residents, so that would mean 2,000 CARS parking on match days in addition to the residents cars. Bearing in mind the number of people using the trains and busses (and other parking areas), and that the majority of those additional cars would have more than 1 occupant, I can't believe that there are really that many additional cars parked in Coldean on a matchday.

Of course, as I don't park there myself, I can't be certain. It just seems unlikely.

I didn't say that. I said 1.5 cars per household in the 4000 households in Coldean AND Moulsecoomb (as per Argus story) - that's 6,000. And not all of them are parked on the streets: most of the houses in Rushlake have carports or paved over gardens. So, in terms of parking on the streets - let's say there are 3,000 cars on the two estates. If we split that 200 to Coldean and 400 to 'Scoomb, I'd say there are definitely 200 more cars in Coldean on matchdays - my street alone gets about a dozen more.

 

[The Large One]

Extract from the Council Officers' Report into stadium expansion - 25 April 2012

Sustainable Transport: No objection – Amended comment received 5/4/12

Current modal split- The applicants have carried out substantial surveys and these demonstrate that the proportion of spectators using sustainable modes and cars are higher and lower respectively than those expected at the time of the original stadium consent and compared to other football stadia. However a difficulty arises from this work in that the surveys did not acknowledge the existence of displaced parking in Moulsecoomb and Coldean, but a substantial body of anecdotal evidence indicated that this occurs and causes problems. Those parking in these areas were recorded as walking to the ground which will distort the estimates of mode proportions.

Additional parking counts and analysis have been requested and carried out and counts carried out on matchdays and otherwise comparable non-matchdays have been compared. Counts commissioned by BHAFC suggest that about 530 supporter vehicles may be displaced into North Moulsecoomb and Coldean on Saturdays and about 650 on weekdays. Counts carried out by ESCC on behalf of the stadium transport management group suggest the additional matchday parking in (north and south) Moulsecoomb alone is about 300 on Saturdays and 325 on weekdays. These counts are not exactly comparable but it is clear that a significant problem of displaced parking has arisen.

Displaced parking
The proposed expansion would be expected to worsen the problem of displaced parking. The applicants propose a number of measures to offset this- a publicity campaign to discourage parking in residential areas, the inclusion of travel vouchers with match tickets, the extra car parking on Falmer Academy retained land, and a reduction in prices at off street car parks.

Although these are clearly positive measures, it is unlikely that the problem will be entirely resolved by them, as clearly parking free will always be preferable to paying. It is therefore considered that, in accordance with policy TR2 the applicants should be required to fund the implementation and operation of a matchday residents parking scheme to be implemented, if operationally possible and subject to public consultation, at the start of the 2012/2013 season.

It is estimated that such a scheme would cost £113,000 approx to set up and would involve additional first year costs of £40,000 and annual operating costs in later years of £57,000 minus revenue. This would be funded by the applicants as the stadium parking is the source of the problem. The cost estimates would be expected to reduce once the detailed boundary of parking controls was determined as the estimates are for a larger area than the parking counts referred to above. The nature of the scheme would be a ‘light touch’ scheme with the minimum effective signing and lining consistent with effective operation rather than a comprehensive Controlled Parking Zone.

 

[sully]

I didn't say that. I said 1.5 cars per household in the 4000 households in Coldean AND Moulsecoomb (as per Argus story) - that's 6,000. And not all of them are parked on the streets: most of the houses in Rushlake have carports or paved over gardens. So, in terms of parking on the streets - let's say there are 3,000 cars on the two estates. If we split that 200 to Coldean and 400 to 'Scoomb, I'd say there are definitely 200 more cars in Coldean on matchdays - my street alone gets about a dozen more.

You did say 1.5 per household, but didn't mention Moulsecoomb in the post I looked at where you did the 10,000 x £120 calculation. I also hadn't allowed for the fact that many residents will be parked off the road, so messing up my calculations!

Looking at deletebeepbeepbeep's post above, it seems that the percentage was about 25% more on matchdays, and is likely to increase with the increased capacity, I guess.

 

[Was not Was]

such a scheme would cost £113,000 approx to set up and would involve additional first year costs of £40,000 and annual operating costs in later years of £57,000 minus revenue. This would be funded by the applicants

So the club could be quids in! If revenue was £100,000, the project would start to make a profit in the fifth year of operation. (I mean, if the set up were 'funded by the applicants', surely the revenue would accrue to them too).

 

[wellquickwoody]

The club does encourage use of public transport, and discourages people from parking in Coldean / Moulsecoomb. However, as we've seen from one or two posters on here (and the obvious hundreds of cars that do park there), many don't care. They'll park there because they can.

Indeed TLO you are correct, human nature dictates that, where possible, people will take the option most convenient for them.

I do also believe that the council, and more specifically the people of Coldean and Moulscoomb, should remember the benefits the success of The Amex has brought to Brighton. For the city as a whole we benefit from more publicity, increased spending from visiting fans in the hospitality industry and a general feelgood factor. In the more local area to The Amex many jobs have been created, both full and part time, in and around the stadium, local shops will have seen takings rise on match days, and many projects run by Albion in the Community will have benefited local residents..

From personal experience of living almost next door to The Goldstone, parking problems exist for only 3 hours every other week of the year, and only if you are the type who cannot work around problems. If you go out in your car on a matchday, either get back well before the game, or after it has finished, job done.

The council, and the residents, and the university will all realise, sooner or later, that The Amex is here to stay, and it should be actively encouraged to get better and better. At some point in the future Sussex University will realise that if they allow their car parks to be used on matchdays they could be better off to the tune of say 2,000 cars x £7.50 x 25 home games per year, equals £375,000. It may take 3, 5 or even 10 years, but it will happen.