Brighton & Hove City Council Reviews 

The council's website is not very user friendly and very difficult to submit a request or complaint.
Since moving in to a new property I have asked for a council tax number, and bill, three times and received no response.

I was asked today to take more time to use the automated service to renew my parking permit!! 😂
The site takes me to pay and won’t let me and starts from the beginning again. Round and round in circles. So I phoned the number and was asked to take 5-10 seconds between clicking each button. The whole council site is extraordinarily outdated and slow and I have had these issues on more than one occasion. Fingers crossed I can be slow enough to be successful next time 🤞

What a disgrace the food waste bin collection crew are. It is supposed to be collected every Monday I put it out every Sunday without fail and they keep missing collection. This week they miss it again and I got report it to be told I had failed to put it out in time. A complete lie! I cannot abide this. It doesn’t help that they collect at night when it’s dark and thanks to the council the road isn’t adequately lit. I’ve complained and will be taking it further. Disgraceful.

I applied for a moving house payment of £150 and was awarded this payment due 14th September didn't arrive then told 21st September didn't arrive called up again and was told it will be paid on 28th September I know that I was awarded this payment but its been a complete mess and waiting for this payment

Brighton & Hove it’s the worst Council ever in Uk. They overcharge the council tax and don’t do nothing!!!! The City is extremely dirty and abandoned, pavements are roads in critical condition and rusty road posts.
BRIGHTON & HOVE IS THE WORSE UGLY PLACE TO LIVE!!!!!

**Extremely disappointing and unhelpful council**

I have a disabled Blue Badge and, on this occasion, inadvertently failed to set the required clock time. I was also spoken to by the traffic warden, who was aware of the circumstances and noted that I was simply loading. Despite this, the council still issued/enforced the penalty.

What is particularly frustrating is the council's approach to communication. Their own response effectively says that traffic wardens are not there to provide advice and that motorists should not rely on them for guidance. If that is genuinely the council's position, it raises the obvious question: **what is the point of speaking to an enforcement officer if their guidance cannot be relied upon?**

I have subsequently asked the council to explain the apparent contradiction between what their website says and what they are telling me, but instead of providing a straightforward answer, I have been told that legislation prevents them from discussing the matter further because I have already made an appeal.

I am still waiting for the council to identify the specific legislation that supposedly prevents them from answering reasonable questions or explaining their position.

The whole experience gives the impression of a council that is primarily interested in issuing penalties rather than communicating properly with residents and helping them understand the rules. Everything else about the situation was straightforward, yet a minor technical omission has resulted in a very frustrating and disproportionate experience.

**A particularly poor standard of customer service.** The council's website appears to say one thing, while its actual approach to dealing with residents appears to be quite different. It would be far better if they were prepared to communicate openly, provide clear explanations and take some responsibility for the advice—or lack of advice—given by their own enforcement officers.

Our roads are a mess filled with potholes and rubbish - the council need to get the basics right

Due to the new permit holder only parking where my mother lives she doesn't own a car and was led to believe that if she bought visitor permits it would make parking easier only to now find that the biggest stretch of the road (over 20 spaces) is for paid parking only, this leaves 3 permit holder only bays outside a block of 26 flats. So parking for relatives visiting is now actually worse than it was before and left a 77yr old woman out of pocket due to mis selling.

My wife and I visited Brighton for a few days earlier this month and loved it. Very vibrant place to be and not your typical UK resort.
The only downside was the terrible EV fast charging provision in the city. We found it totally inadequate and had to charge well outside the city.

Received a PCN even though I had a visitor's permit filled out and placed on the dashboard of my car. The reason for giving the fine, even after we appealed, was that the year on the ticket (rest of the date was fine) was partially covered by the bottom of the windshield. Did they really think we'd saved our visitor's pass from another year and were reusing it!?

Cheap antics like this can't help but make you think that this council is just out to extort as much money as they can from the public, not to actually improve the lives of the people who live in their city. Not a great impression of the Green Party.

Appalling parking service. Constantly getting parking fines while in loading bays - even though I’m loading! Parking officials ‘observe’ the loading for approximately 5 mins and slap you with a fine. It takes longer than this to knock on a door bell and walk up a flight of stairs! Shameful profiteering!

Runned by Green but seems to be run by Reform!
They manipulate and pushing disable people to suicide for save money!
This country it's the land of FASCISM!
Don't visit this place

My council tax should be amended for deduction from last year but nothing happened even though I received an email notification. I raised three tickets this month regarding this just wanted to add my partner‘s name back to the bill and also remove the deduction but there’s no response for all of those tickets. It’s been more than three weeks now from the first tickets I raised and that is really unacceptable and I cannot reach anyone through their landline.

Requested an address change in nearly 6 months ago... no update. Tried support tickets still no update. Now my property manger is annoyed that he's getting bills.

Awful service.

Made a complaint and got no responce months ago

Brighton council just wrote off millions of pounds and apologised to the Brighton tax payers for the i360 tower, while my wife who has multiple sclerosis virtually wheelchair dependent had her carers help cut to three days a week, plus the roads are in terrible disrepair it used to be such a beautiful city and this lot has ruined it with their stupidity and incompetence so sad. N

Unfortunately on a visit to Brighton I drove across a bus lane 2 years ago in 2024. This fuckhousery of a council spent 2 years sending PCN to wrong address and then passing it to bailiffs and now the charge is 10 times the amount. An appeal takes 12 weeks and they do not take calls to complain or even explain it was them in the wrong… Brighton and Hove council apparently collected 33 million last year in these fines… it’s a legal con and they should be prosecuted. Will never set foot in that shithole of city again….

Refuse note collected Tuesday 13 January. Lovely message on website saying it will be collected shortly. Ha!! That message has now gone and the website won’t allow me to mark the collection as missed. Can’t imagine why… Trying to make yourselves look good I suppose. As a council you are failing your people badly. Bins are overflowing and rats and foxes are having a field day. SHAME ON YOU BRIGHTON AND HOVE CITY COUNCIL

I honestly wish Trustpilot had a zero-star option, because giving Brighton & Hove City Council even one star feels like an undeserved compliment. I have lived in Brighton for over six years. While the city itself is a gem, the Council is arguably the worst local authority in the UK. They have mastered the art of failing their residents while aggressively emptying their pockets.

1. Predatory "Revenue Traps" & Fine Culture The Council has turned the city into a minefield of PCN traps. Many road signs and bus lane layouts feel intentionally deceptive, designed to induce driver error rather than improve traffic flow. While they claim to be "green," their priority is clearly the revenue from fines. In the city centre, you see enforcement officers every 20 minutes—yet you'll wait months for basic service improvements. For local businesses, there is no "education" or "guidance"—only immediate, heavy fines that feel like rubbing salt in the wounds of struggling entrepreneurs.

2. Financial Mismanagement & The i360 Scandal Their financial track record is a disaster. While they demand record-high Council Tax increases year after year, public services are shrinking. They cry poverty, yet they wasted nearly £50 million of taxpayers' money on the i360 observation tower. After the previous operators failed and defaulted on loans, the Council was left to pick up the pieces, forced to accept "pennies on the pound" for assets they funded. It is an insult to residents that we are being squeezed for parking fines while the Council squanders millions on "white elephant" projects.

3. The Pothole Compensation "Wall" I recently tried to claim for a tyre destroyed by a massive, neglected pothole. While reporting it was easy, the compensation claim form is a labyrinth of bureaucratic hurdles designed to make you quit. After an hour of filing, I was rejected with a wall of legal jargon, claiming their maintenance is "perfect." It is sheer gaslighting; anyone driving on our crumbling roads knows that is a lie.

4. Dangerous "Anti-Human" Road Planning The recent re-modelling of Preston Road and London Road is dangerous. They have narrowed junctions to a point where they ignore the physical reality of a vehicle’s turning circle. The new cycle lanes allow cyclists to speed through zebra crossings with zero visibility. They are prioritizing ideology over basic road safety, and it's only a matter of time before a serious accident occurs.

This Council operates like a predatory corporation—fining residents to cover the costs of their own monumental financial blunders. They are incompetent, out of touch, and have zero accountability.

Tried to renew my garden waste subscription by phone today. It gets renewed once every year. Should have been easy as I have had a garden waste bin for more than 5 years now. However found it hard to get through to the right department. Finally got hold of a staff member who advised she could take a renewal payment from me. This she did and subsequently sent me an email confirming receipt. I later in the day received a new email from Brighton and Hove Council welcoming me to their garden waste collection service. However this was wrong, It was not a new application. I do not need the new bin that the latest council memo tells me I will get. I have been with the service for at least the last 5 years and already have a bin, And as I told the staff member I spoke with I simply wanted to renew. How can things get so scrambled I do wonder? There must be a record somewhere that my address already has a garden waste bin and has had so for years. And I did say I wanted a renewal of my existing contract not a new contract. That was my reason for ringing as I was responding to a email prompt from Brighton and Hove Council. I will have to try again tomorrow as I do not want, nor do I need two bins. The person I spoke with at the council was pleasant but seemed to limit the conversation to the her own strict parameters. Now it is something of a mess and I will have to try ringing again tomorrow to sort out the situation which I am not looking forward to. I repeat, I am certain I asked for a renewal of my existing contract as I was responding to a specific message for renewal from Brighton Council. I do wonder why in any dealings with the council things seem to go so wrong as the many testemonies on this site report?