Are Organised Responses "Skewing" Brighton & Hove's Red Route Survey?

People are trying to “skew” responses to public consultations in Brighton and Hove, according to concerns raised on social media platforms.

The city's council is currently consulting about proposed “red routes” along the A23 and Lewes Road to ban vehicles stopping, loading and dropping passengers off—no matter how briefly.

Now, concerns have been by the Brighton and Hove cycling campaign group "Bricycles" in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, encouraging people to complete the surveys.

The Bricycles post said:

"Lewes Road and the A23 could become red routes.

"Less illegal parking would make cycling safer on these routes so complete the surveys which are linked from this page."

But it was described as an attempt to “skew” the responses by an anonymous member of a private Facebook group called Stop the Gridlock – Save Our City.

And an anonymous follow-up post said that they had filled out a false response to the consultation, adding:

“Ha! Just filled in the survey with a false name / email as proof of concept.

"Look forward to the cycling lobby trying to fix the results.”

Bricycles said:

"We are surprised that a group called ‘Stop the Gridlock’ would encourage people to cheat a consultation and oppose a scheme that will stop the gridlock created by illegal parking on these routes."

Campaign group Brighton Active Travel also expressed concerns that people would fill in the consultation with false information.

The group said:

"This blatant attempt to corrupt a community consultation about road safety costs taxpayers because the council has to spend resources deleting the false signatures.

"And worse, the tactic is truly undemocratic."

The proposed red route would cover a stretch of the A23 that includes London Road and Preston Road between Cheapside and South Road, in Preston village.

It would also cover the A270 Lewes Road between Elm Grove and the southern end of the Vogue Gyratory.

Labour councillor Trevor Muten, who chairs the council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee, said that the consultation was open to anyone with an interest in the area.

Those responding to the council survey are asked to give their name and address to be checked against official records to establish where people are from and discount duplicated responses.

Councillor Muten said:

"We check for patterns such as repeated wording or phrases or submissions that all occur in the space of a short timeframe.

"We can also check browser type if we suspect responses may have come from the same source.

"Consultation provides valued opportunity for feedback. We encourage residents to engage positively with this process."

In April last year, the council said that it was changing its e-petitions service after claims of “sabotage” and bogus signatories.

The claims surfaced when several false names appeared on two petitions – for and against a new cycle lane in Old Shoreham Road, Hove.

Bogus names included Donald Duck and Adolf Hitler.

Councillors’ names also appeared on petitions which were the opposite of their publicised opinions.

Since then, those signing have been asked to enter a verified email address as well as their home address.