Days after Brighton & Hove City Council said it would investigate the placement of a cycle hangar causing outrage with parking permit holders who said it was “deliberately” blocking car spaces, another resident has taken to the local press saying she does not want one of the “giant ugly objects” outside her house.
Janice Goodlet told The Argus she is “concerned and distressed” by a plan to place one of the bike storage facilities — of which the council has provided 60 since July and plans to install 90 more of by the spring, totalling 900 cycle spaces for residents — in front of her house on St Leonards Road in Hove.
Despite saying she is “not against cycle hangars being installed”, the resident of the road for nearly 30 years says she is “unhappy” that it is “directly outside” her “lounge and bedroom”.
“I am not against cycle hangars being installed on the public highway so cyclists can store their bicycles in a secure location, but I am unhappy with the way the council has decided on its location without any direct consultation with the residents who will be directly affected,” she said.
“There are plenty of other locations near me where the cycle hangar would not be directly outside a resident’s lounge and bedroom. It would appear that the negative impact it would have on me and my partner is of no importance.
“I have lived in my house for nearly 30 years and have loved living here, but the thought of having an immovable and large object directly outside my home over which I have no control makes me feel really concerned and distressed.”
> ‘Crass and insensitive’ front page slammed after ‘Adolf Hitler’ signs bike lane petition
Local councillor Robert Nemeth, who was “surprised” to see his name on the petition linked above considering his opposition to that particular bike lane, said the hangars are a “highly controversial policy” that “has received neither public nor democratic oversight”.
“Matters such as planning, access, parking space loss, procurement and the inevitable vandalism have not been properly considered,” he said. “I, of course, back Janice in opposing this monstrosity outside her home. These structures should only go outside the homes of those who wish to use them.”
Earlier this week Brighton & Hove City Council said it would investigate the location of another hangar in the city after an image of it taking up two permit car parking spaces emerged on social media.
The photo of the Norfolk Square hangar led to accusations of council “incompetence” and the “continuing war against motorists” before the authority confirmed to road.cc it would be “investigating” and was “aware of concerns”
The council was keen to add, however, that it has been “delighted” by the overall response to the new cycle hangars and “residents have wanted them for a long time”, something apparent from the demand for available spaces.
“We began with the installation of 20 in July and saw a 100 per cent take-up rate in just a few weeks,” Councillor Steve Davis, co-chair of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee explained.
“Since then we have installed 40 more, and all but one of the total of 360 spaces have now been snapped up. This means that 359 residents now have somewhere safe and secure to store their cycles.
“There are also around 300 people on waiting lists for spaces. We are currently looking at more hangar locations. We will have a total of 150 cycle hangars installed by spring of next year – that’s 900 cycle spaces in total.
“We know that if we’re to get more people travelling actively and sustainably, we have to give them the right infrastructure. Cycle hangars provide people who live in homes with little or no storage space an opportunity to store their bikes safely and securely.”
62 thoughts on “NIMBY locals “concerned and distressed” by “giant ugly” bike hangar”
Why exactly are the locals
Why exactly are the locals “NIMBYs”? That implies that they want this kind of monstrosity to be erected elsewhere, but not near their homes.
This isn’t the case. No one wants this kind of carbuncle ANYWHERE in the country. Direct action by residents to ensure that this structure was unusable would resolve the issue permanently.
There is no excuse in this seizure of shared public space, when bikes can be kept inside private property.
Finally, despite there being no mention of cost of installation or price of leasing a space, I guarantee that the cost of the scheme will far outweigh any monies earned, which is disgraceful considering that people have to pay a king’s ransom to park their cars.
Is there a number for the cost of the scheme to council tax payers and variable cost of administration? How about price of lease? I bet it’s something pathetic like 50 quid a year.
Because its EXACTLY what she
Because its EXACTLY what she said!? Nice of you to encourage vandalism
“..seizure of shared public
“..seizure of shared public space…”
You mean like the use of public roads by private cars as a car park?
.
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Oh dear, your great self
Oh dear, your great self-declared intellectual genius is clearly not up to snuff today. If only you had bothered to read the article you would realise the very simple errors you make. No-one wants you say, yet 359 out of 360 spaces to date have been snapped up and more people are on the waiting list. Sounds like at least 600 people want them for starters Strange definition of no-one, but then again I have noticed you aren’t too hot on accurate definitions when it suits you.
No excuse for seizure of shared public space when bikes can be kept on private property you say. I am sure the exact same thing is true of cars. I manage to park both of mine on my property and don’t need to seize shared public space to park them on the road / pavement. The caveat of course is that it’s only possible to store either bike or car on private property IF you are lucky enough to have the space.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
Given that there are 51,000 people on waiting lists for a hangar space in London alone, the claim that nobody wants them is clearly nonsense.
Oh cool, is that allowed? So if someone parks a Ford Ranger outside my house, which is taller, longer, wider and to my mind far uglier than a bike hangar, it’s OK if I ensure it’s unusable?
Not everyone lives in nasty modern Barrett homes in cul-de-sacs in leafy Essex, Nigel, for people on the top floor of a Victorian house storing a bike indoors is difficult, impractical or even impossible, particularly for elderly people or those with disabilities (before you accuse me of self interest, we have a large garden flat in which we can easily store all six of our bikes and we have not applied for a hangar space, nor would we).
In my road in London a space in a bike hangar costs £60 p.a.; each hangar holds six bikes and takes up the space of an average-sized saloon car, so £360 a year revenue, while a parking permit to take up the same space with a car costs £130 – £210. As for installation costs, certainly in my borough these are met by the private company that runs the scheme. The council did subsidise the scheme to the tune of a massive £15 per space, but this has now been withdrawn, so the scheme costs the council a sum total of £0 p.a. The road was resurfaced last year, including the parking bays, at an approximate cost of £220,000. There are roughly 100 parking spaces, so it’ll be a good ten years before the drivers have paid for the capital cost of their spaces, before which time it’ll doubtless need resurfacing again.
Please keep your moronic
Please keep your moronic prejudiced opinions to yourself.
Nope – it’s directing the use
Nope – it’s directing the use of about 3% of residents’ parking space so it benefits 10x as many people, which seems reasonable to me.
Given that two of these in a parking space raises about £600 a year in revenue, vs around £200 for a resident’s parking permit, it’s the latter who need to make a businss case for the below market rate they are paying for on-road storage.
A sensible balance would meet the demand for cycle storage at £1 per week (which would cut out casual use), and then see how much space (I guess 90-95%) was left for motor vehicles. 90% of space for cars would let 1.3x as many bikes as cars be stored overall.
I can’t find a letters’ page on the Brighton Argus, or I’d write suggesting that, and that the resident permit charge be increased to £500 – just to see the frothing.
If “no one wants them” why
If “no one wants them” why are spaces in them already sold out, on pretty much every scheme nationwide ?
What about the seizure of public pand for the storage of private vehicels, which occurs daily… with reesidents leaving notes and going outside abusing people who DARE to park a car on the public highway outside their home, claiming that “they always park their car there” ?
As for cost, generally the bike hanger bring in many times more income per parking space used than a resident permit to leave a car there would bring in. In fact usually a single bike space in one outstrips the costs of keeping a car there, and the hangers can hold multiple bikes. Now if £50 a year is “pathetic” and thse hangers hold let’s say 6 bikes, that means that £300 a year for a car to have a permit in the same street is “pathetic” and should immediately be increased to £600 ?
Logically, even if you don’t
Logically, even if you don’t want bike hangars installed in the first place, you might still decide use the hangar if you get overruled, especially at the artificially low, loss-making prices the council offers. That doesn’t nullify the fact that no one needs to store a bike in a specially erected bike hangar in the first place. There is a large additional cost of installing and maintaining the bike hangar vs a standard car parking space, plus the costs of administration, which you haven’t factored into your reasoning. It is unlikely that charging someone 50 quid a year to rent a space would ever recoup the initial cost of the hangar itself, although I have no figures for its initial cost (do you?).
As for the other stuff you’ve posted, you have to remember that people often need a car to function as a valuable member of society, whether that be too get to work or visit friends and loved ones.
I think there are question marks around the right cost of provision of public spaces for car owners, but we are where we are in terms of antiquated housing stock, and it isn’t right morally to deprive the working poor of their freedom by making car parking too expensive. If personally like to see an increase in cost of parking permits, with perhaps a discount for people in band D or below housing.
Rakia wrote:
1. How are you so sure that nobody needs to store their bike in one of these hangars? Isn’t that like saying nobody needs to store their car on the road?
2. What is this guff about the working poor? Or, as we like to call, it: “a straw man”?
As your man says on
As your man says on notjustbikes – requiring people to shell out for a car just to be able to have a place in society might not be optimal for people. Follow the money – who benefits? The people or the motor trade and their backers? (A diverting rabbit-hole looms on the subject of parasitism and control and who benefits from a particular observed behaviour but dodging that).
Having noted that though it’s hard to dodge another rabbit hole of “who’s getting the benefits of society?” in that the rule for human societies seems to be highly unequal distribution o f”goods” and duties or taxes. So you could of course argue that excluding chunks of the population – here: children, the disabled, the poor, some old people etc. – is entirely “natural” or at least the default. Or go full contrarian and suggest maybe civilisation is impossible without it!
I have been a cycle commuter
I have been a cycle commuter for over 35 years. There were a few months when I was temping for the highways and doing work on the motorways, litter picking and ditch digging, when I was being picked up, but apart from that, the bicycle.
Since I got to work in the lab, for over twenty years at the bench, I think it’s two days not cycling. Both times I walked in. One of those was because I had sliced most of the end of my finger off, when cleaning a laminar flow cabinet, the anecdote would have been perfect if it had been a biological safety cabinet.
Really? So people who cycle
Really? So people who cycle or walk are not valuable members of society?
It’s an old Nigel trope –
It’s an old Nigel trope – another of his banned user giveaways – he’s trolling the supposed moderators as much as the readers.
He also believes that all car journeys are essential and all bike journeys are pointless circles.
Rakia wrote:
Each hangar has space for six bicycles, therefore 6 subscribers, therefore £300 per year. Plus, why do they need to recoup the cost? Our local council spends a fortune each year remarking parking spaces on resurfaced roads that are free to park on … they are guaranteed never to recoup that cost. Why do only car owners have an entitlement to the council providing a useful service?
And plenty of valuable members of society don’t have (or can’t afford) a car, and choose/need to get around by bicycle … often without the space to store one properly inside their home. Or they live on the fourth floor with no way of getting it up there bar manhandling it up the stairs.
it also isn’t morally right to refuse to provide facilities to the working poor who can’t afford a car.
Quote:
I’ve removed all of the unnecessary (and inaccurate) words – the whole post is now easier to understand, and much more accurate
Rakia wrote:
So can cars, it’s called a garage. Costs a bit, though. Dumping your scrapheap on the road to take up place there is probably more attractive.
Xenophon2 wrote:
But then where would you keep your bikes to stop them getting nicked (when you’re not driving them to the downhill / off to a race)?
“These structures should only
“These structures should only go outside the homes of those who wish to use them.”
This quote from the councillor sounds like he is baking the installation of these outside anyone’s house that asks for one, now that is a good service
Also anyone who doesn’t have
Also anyone who doesn’t have a motor vehicle could request double yellow lines outside their house to stop ugly cars from being parked there.
That will have no effect,
That will have no effect, motorists will just claim “loading” or “drop off” or just deploy their BOLAS. Even if you added double-yellow “flashes” on the kerb for no loading it won’t change anything. You either have to pay for a warden to be on station 24/7 (plus a bouncer…) or go straight to double-red, no stopping.
So the only reliable way to avoid having motor vehicles parked outside your house * is to have motor vehicles moving (fast) outside your house.
Or live in a private car park – many people are wary of those!
* Unless you’re a councillor or police inspector or someone. If you’re properly important you’ll be monied so you can just buy a place that’s much further from the road.
Presumably she would have no
Presumably she would have no objection if a car or van was parked outside her house? So just stick a dummy windscreen and fake delivery company logos on it; problem solved. That said, she does have a point about being consulted, and I’m very surprised that they didn’t.
Presumably, local councillor Robert Nemeth only finds bicycle hangars a “monstrosity” and would have no objection to something equally large, like a big van for instance, being parked there instead, and his opposition is definitely nothing to do with the fact that it’s for bicycles. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder councillor.
If this was in front of my
If this was in front of my house I be upset too The value of the house will be affected Now before you go ohh I’m not a cyclist I ride all year round in Canada even have a bike with mudgards on it I own 3 bikes and ride them But the value of my home comes first then someone being able to lock there bike Put it near a buss stop or the corner of road
It’s essentially a parked car
It’s essentially a parked car. Can’t park on the corner of a street. 10 metres from a junction, apparently.
Can’t park at a bus stop. No BOLAS.
No it not a parked car is not
No it not a parked car is not there 24 hours 7 days a week
Oh, I’ve walked around London
Oh, I’ve walked around London – a lot of cars are parked for months on end.
Ah, so it’s a question of
Ah, so it’s a question of degree. Given on average cars spend 95% of the time immobile would you be happy if it was only there a bit over 22.5 hours a day? Or if the colour changed occasionally? Being Canadian unless you live downtown I imagine any cars will be at a slight distance from you – are you in one of those areas where building a minimum amount of parking is a rule (or only detached houses?) Notjustbikes – from London, Ontario – has some interesting observations on this subject. eg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o
In the UK people can circumvent some building requirements by putting a structure on wheels so it’s theoretically movable. If it didn’t just encourage the theft I’d suggest this as mitigation here.
What’s the difference?
Looking at one of the more
Looking at one of the more moaned about locations on Google, there are all kinds of things in areas that could be claimed to be needed for parking, including communal municipal dustbin units and a derelict looking VW Campavan.
If a car moves from a parking
If a car moves from a parking space another will quickly take its place. does it matter if it the same car in the space 24/7 it will be A car of some description
There’s a parked car outside
There’s a parked car outside my front door 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s not always the same one, but there’s always one there. This is no different.
Mybike wrote:
An individual car, maybe, but a lot of spaces are in high demand and will have a vehicle in them most of the time.
It certainly doesn’t look as ugly as row after row of Wheely bins
They seem to be 2.5m long, so
They seem to be 2.5m long, so it’s actually half a parked car.
Need to be installed in pairs for efficiency.
ktache wrote:
They could be painted to look like DPD vans, those are allowed to park anywhere, apparently.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I applaud the jest… but add that revenue from offering advertising space such as DPD could be pretty profitable.
You could also tag a parcel drop off to them making them even more useful for residents.
There’s no evidence at all
There’s no evidence at all that bike hangars negatively affect house prices, certainly in my neighbourhood there are more and more being installed and house prices continue to rise. With 50,000+ Londoners wanting a space and more and more people taking up cycle commuting, the availability of bike hangars on a street is, one would imagine, more likely to be a selling point than a deterrent.
Mybike wrote:
What a sad little existence.
Mybike wrote:
Well, if we could extrapolate from the value of houses near cycle paths in the UK, that value is likely to increase, not fall e.g. Bristol-Bath path.
Don’t you use punctuation or spelling in Canada?
They solve the parking
They solve the parking problem in Canada by having ploughing routes and if you are stupid enough to park in the wrong place, your car gets ploughed.
I think they should get hold of some of the old Russian tanks that really shouldn’t be allowed on a battlefield and drive them along cycle lanes and double yellow lines, crushing any parked vehicles in their path.
If there was secure bike
If there was secure bike parking outside of my house I would consider that a selling point. Presumably you think that on street parking outside a house also has a negative effect on its value?
Mybike wrote:
Not the latter, need to keep those clear for visibility. Put (open access) cycle parking near public transport you say? Genius idea.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/09/bus-stop-bike-parking-enormous-need-on.html
Of course you need even more the bigger the transport hub.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/new-zwolle-station-bicycle-parking-facility/
“But there is no room for bicycle parking” / “it’s not in keeping with our Edwardian neighbourhood” *. Luckily other places had dealt with this one too (sorry folks, we’re just not that unique and special):
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/home-side-bicycle-parking/
* Brixton – plagued by trendy cargo bikes since 1910.
The value of a house is only
The value of a house is only relevant if you are buying or selling.
The rest of the time, it’s value is irrelevant.
So “The value of the house
So “The value of the house will be affected”, what evidence do you have to back up that statement?
And yet housing in towns and
And yet housing in towns and cities gain value when there is good cycling facilities and public transport to hand. With more and more towns introducing congestion charges and the fact that the majority of journeys are less than 2 miles. Having good sustainable facilities becomes very attractive. Where I used to live I only used the car for long journeys as I could walk and cycle everywhere I went. If you are in suburbia or some rural village then the priorities change. If you look at this particular road on google map you will see that it looks like a rat run to avoid the main street. Street View shows cars parked up and bins sitting out on the pavement. The removal of one parking bay to facilitate parking for 6 residents is very much freeing up the road space and creating a better environment.
There probably was a
There probably was a consultation tbh but B&H Council do have a habit of just popping them up on their website as opposed to making a song & dance about it.
They did this when there was all the noise about the cycles lanes which went in over the pandemic. Everybody was cross about not being consulted but guess what was there in abundance on the council’s website…..
So she’s happy to have an
So she’s happy to have an ugly-as-sin, brown Peugeot 4007 sat directly outside her lounge, suiting the transport-storage needs of a single person, but a rather inconspicuous bike hanger that suits the transport-storage needs of ten people for 2/3rds of the space is “distressing”? For a start, it’s about half the height, and is going to block a lot less of her view.
Again, if you have no issue with people grabbing large areas of public-owned space to store private property that’s stationary for 95% of its life, you can’t exactly kick off about other people doing exactly the same thing, only in a way that’s many, many times more space efficient.
Yeah, you can fit a bike inside, but why should you have to give up valuable living-space if all of your neigbours are allowed to store their cars on the public road?
If they get really pissy, I’d
If they get really pissy, I’d suggest buying a Fiat Multipla and parking that outside. They’d soon appreciate the asthetic qualities of a bike bin.
How about the Multipla 1958
How about the Multipla 1958 version, which could easily double as bike storage?
Too pretty.
Too pretty.
Confess – that’s just a ski
Confess – that’s just a ski-lift gondola on wheels, isn’t it?
Bonus for the UK though – you’d never have someone park so close you couldn’t open the door.
Wiker seats!?
Wiker seats!?
Awesome car – no slagging off
Awesome car – no slagging off the Multipla please!
The local councillor says:
The local councillor says: “Matters such as planning, access, parking space loss, procurement and the inevitable vandalism have not been properly considered”. Is this an admission that Mr Nemeth hasn’t done his job?
I expect the council did consider whether these hangars could be installed. Perhaps Mr Nemeth was absent for those meetings, or perhaps he was merely voted down and has instead taken to whining to local press.
Maybe Brighton & Hove could
Maybe Brighton & Hove could just repurpose broken-down older vans as cycle hangars, thus both sovling the visual aesthetic problem and doing some useful recycling.
Some people are so hysterical
Some people are so hysterical. When I used to instal cycle hangars for a London Borough one of the most common complaints was ‘they attract drug dealers’. There was never any evidence and these complaints, though loud, were always a tiny minority. I could never work out why a drug dealer would be attracted to ply his / her trade next to a cycle hangar. I did get a couple of letters from a solicitor who threatened to take me to court. That never materialised either. People get over it – once they see their neighbours using the facility and realise that a cycle hangar will not cause the collapse of the social order and the degradation of the entire neighbourhood.
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:
Excellent bonus then, drug dealer bait so the police can just tour the cycle hangars and pick ’em up at will.
That’s funny; you know what
That’s funny; you know what has genunely increased drug dealing about 50m away from my flat in north London? The installation of a loading bay for delivery mopeds. It has transformed the immediate area from a pleasant green (ish) space, albeit framed by two busy streets, into a seedy epicentre of low-level crime.
We’re actually moving because of it (police won’t, or perhaps can’t, do anything)
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:
They’d seen the reports of drug taking by cyclists e.g. Lance, and thought that all cyclists are like that.
They cycle lots in Amsterdam,
They cycle lots in Amsterdam, don’t they?
Therefore…
My initial reaction to this
My initial reaction to this headline was ‘sod em’.. but then I thought about moany old Janice Goodlet who’s been in her home for 30 years with nothing but a gradual decline in green space and increase of pollution to worry about and then I thought again yeah sod her.. then I remembered when ‘they’ (being the bus company) placed a new route bus stop outside of my old house a few years ago, it wasn’t the fact there was a bus sat idling outside my house polluting the air I breathed that bothered me the most, but, the placing of that bus stop. If they’d have actually put any thought or consideration into it, they’d have placed it 40 feet up the road, it would have been alongside a green space, would not have blocked a path with people waiting for the bus or obsured visability of a junction and just seemed to make far more sense than pissing off my and my neighbour. I ended up climbing up the lamp post and moving it to that ‘more logical place’.. three times as it happens in the end.. no one listened and no one cared. I brought the house without a bus stop there and was glad to see the back of it when I left. I moved to a house with a bus stop about 20 feet from my front wall (expectations managed) and I’m all for it. So an awful lot of waffle to play devils advocate with moany NIMBY Janice Goodlet.. for all we know, like my bus stop there’s a better place to put it just a few feet away.. or like suggested, why wouldn’t you place it in front of someone who’s signed up for the scheme’s home? Common sense has got nothing to do with it.
Once you become aware of the
Once you become aware of the space taken by parking, you can’t unsee it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/baoigheallain/status/1590295017968791552
Was thinking exactly that the
Was thinking exactly that the other day, reminded by rich_cb’s example of improved street space / traffic calmed area in Cardiff.
It’s certainly the case in Scotland: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/more-third-city-space-scotland-taken-cars-and-parking-study-shows-2911231
Picardy Place area in Edinburgh is getting remodelled (tram) so our entry in the link below is out of date – but it’s still a massive gyratory for motor vehicles.
https://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/football-pitch-junctions/
Incredible how “but the streets are too narrow” turns out to be the complete opposite of the case – or rather utterly ignoring the large space for the elephants.