Complaints to Brighton and Hove City Council parking services more than doubled last year and made up more than a fifth of the total number of grievances.
In the 2021-22 council year, 392 people complained to parking services, up 132 per cent compared with the year before.
Problems included the council’s new online parking permit system and delays in sending out resident and visitor permits, with some councillors inundated with emails about the issue.
The figures are contained in the council’s Customer Insight Report which is due to go before the Policy and Resources Committee on Thursday (7 July).
The report also recorded a rise in complaints about the council’s rubbish and recycling service Cityclean. The 331 complaints last year – up 29 per cent – accounted for 19 per cent of all complaints to the council in the year to the end of March.
A separate report into “key performance indicators” for the final quarter of 2021-22 – from January to March – said that 651 rubbish collections out of every 100,000 had been missed, as had 1,008 recycling collections.
The performance report said:
“The service was subject to a service redesign in January 2022 with a new management structure.
“As it beds in, this is intended to lead to improved performance management and service grip which will result in more reliable collections.
“Additional driver and collection operative posts have also been created in order to ensure greater service resilience.”
Complaints also increased for the housing repairs and maintenance service – from 119 in 2020-21 to 264 last year.
Over the past year, 15,702 routine repairs were completed on time – or 66 per cent of jobs – compared with a target of 92 per cent.
There was also a backlog of more than 9,000 routine repairs which built up as workers tackled the backlog from the covid-19 lockdowns when only emergency work was carried out.
There were 1,768 “first-stage complaints” to the council in total last year — a rise of 55 per cent.
Of these, 109 were escalated for investigation and more than half were upheld.
The council said that it had also received an increase in compliments, up 4 per cent to 1,492 last year.
The council’s Policy and Resources Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4pm on Thursday (7 July) when the reports are on the agenda. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
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