Streamline Taxis Raises Funds For Martlets Hospice At Brighton Racecourse Evening
A trophy presentation at Brighton Racecourse on the night Streamline Taxis raised funds for Martlets Hospice
Streamline Taxis marked 90 years on Brighton and Hove's roads by inviting the customers, local businesses and drivers who keep it running to its annual hospitality evening at Brighton Racecourse on Tuesday 1 September, an evening that also raised around £400 for Martlets Hospice through a raffle stocked with prizes from nearly a dozen local businesses.
Representatives from Martlets joined guests in the racecourse's hospitality suite overlooking the South Downs and the Channel, while Brighton Racecourse itself named two races after the partnership on the night's card.
The function room at Brighton Racecourse ahead of Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice
Guests filled tables of ten across the room, a mix of customers, local businesses, suppliers and drivers who work with Streamline throughout the year but rarely meet the team in person, more used to a phone call or a booking through the app than a face-to-face thank you.
The grounds at Brighton Racecourse with views out to sea
This year the evening carried a bigger purpose too. Representatives from Martlets Hospice, which provides end-of-life and palliative care across Brighton, Hove and the surrounding area, joined guests in the racecourse's hospitality suite overlooking the South Downs and the Channel, there to talk about the hospice's work as the raffle and bucket collections got underway around them.
Streamline Taxis' own recap of the evening supporting Martlets Hospice at Brighton Racecourse
A Thank You, Not A Sales Pitch
Streamline's team regularly speak to customers and local businesses over the phone or by email, so the racecourse evening exists to do something those channels can't: put faces to names. Guests were seated for dinner overlooking the coastline, with the evening designed to strengthen relationships built up over years of working together rather than to sell anyone anything.
The venue itself has plenty of history of its own. Brighton Racecourse has staged racing on Whitehawk Hill since 1783, and its horseshoe-shaped course, one of the few in Britain without a complete circuit, gives every hospitality room in the grandstand the same reward: a clear run down to the sea.
Brighton Racecourse's grandstand and track on the night of Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice
Streamline turns 90 this year. The firm began as two separate outfits, Hove Streamline and Brighton Streamline, each a member-owned cooperative working its own patch of the city from 1936, before the pair merged in 2009 into the single company still on the road today. It remains owned by its own driver members, run by five directors elected from that membership, and backed by a 24-hour local call centre. It's also Brighton Racecourse's own preferred taxi partner, which made the venue a fitting choice for a night built around thanking the people who keep the business running.
Streamline Taxis marks 90 years on the road in the official Brighton Racecourse programme
Every table carried white linen, navy napkins and bunches of teal and white balloons, Streamline's own brand colours worked into the room down to the table settings.
A table set with wine and racecards ahead of Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice
Each place setting carried a copy of Brighton Racecourse's official Summer Racing programme, priced at £3.50 on the door, giving guests something to follow as the actual racing played out on the course below the window.
The official raceday programme for the night Streamline Taxis raised funds for Martlets Hospice
By early evening the sun was dropping low over the Channel, and the room's floor-to-ceiling windows, wrapped around the corner of the suite, kept the racecourse and the coastline in view for the whole night rather than just a passing glimpse.
The view from the function room over Brighton Racecourse and the coastline
It was a relaxed, sociable setting rather than a formal dinner, with guests free to move between tables and catch up with people they'd otherwise only deal with down the phone.
A Table Ready For Guests
Balloons and place settings ahead of Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice at Brighton Racecourse
As the light faded outside, the room's balloons and table settings gave the evening a genuinely celebratory feel, a fitting backdrop for a night about saying thank you.
As Evening Fell
Balloons catching the last light over Brighton Racecourse as Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice went on
Supporting Martlets Hospice
This year's evening put its weight behind Martlets Hospice, which provides end-of-life and palliative care to people across Brighton, Hove and the surrounding area. Representatives from the hospice joined the evening and spent time speaking with guests about the work Martlets does, while a raffle and volunteer bucket collections around the racecourse raised in the region of £400 for the charity, with a final confirmed total still to follow from Martlets.
The raffle box and prize list for Martlets Hospice at Streamline Taxis' evening
"We're immensely proud to support Martlets and genuinely grateful for the opportunity to stand alongside such an important local charity. Our annual racecourse evening is about bringing together some of the customers, businesses and partners who support and work with Streamline throughout the year, thanking them and strengthening those relationships on a more personal level."
The quote comes from Simeon, speaking on behalf of the directors and team at Streamline.
The raffle box and Streamline Taxis tote bags at Brighton Racecourse
Local Businesses Rally Round
The raffle itself was a genuine team effort from businesses across the city. BE Outdoor Fit, Brighton and Hove's outdoor fitness community running HIIT, boxing, strength and yoga sessions across more than seven locations in the city, donated a three-month membership voucher. Fatto a Mano, the Neapolitan pizzeria that has been proving its dough for 24 hours and firing it in a wood oven since opening on London Road in 2015, gave a food voucher. Hove's Kind Hands Massage, run by therapist Helen on Wilbury Road, offered up a 90-minute Sarga Bodywork session, a fascia-focused treatment alongside her deep tissue and holistic massage work.
The raffle prize list alongside the racecard at a guest's table setting
Komedia, the North Laine venue that has been part of Brighton's comedy scene since 1994 and hosts more than 700 shows a year across comedy, music, cabaret and family events, donated two tickets to a Friday comedy evening. Real Junk Food Project Brighton, the pay-as-you-feel initiative that intercepts surplus food from supermarkets and suppliers across its Brighton cafes and Bevendean hub to fight food waste and food insecurity, gave two copies of its own cookbook, Rescue Recipes. The Enjoolata Foundation, a Brighton grant-giving foundation that funds grassroots charities and social enterprises across the city, put together a food hamper with Lovebrook, the 33-acre regenerative farm and wellbeing project in Kingston near Lewes that Enjoolata has helped support. The hamper is available by emailing karen@enjoolata.org.
A table set for guests during Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice
The Old Market, the Grade II listed Regency building straddling the Brighton and Hove border, donated two tickets to The Plough on 7 September and two to Anatom on 8 September, both part of the venue's Feel Good programme of live music and soundscape performances. Brighton Racecourse itself offered four tickets to a 2027 raceday, and Streamline rounded out the prizes with two tickets to a Brighton & Hove Albion (1901) match and taxi vouchers of its own.
On The Racecard
The partnership wasn't just confined to the function room. Brighton Racecourse's official card for the night named two races after it: the 6.45pm Streamline Supports The Martlets Hospice Handicap, won on the night by Marco Ghiani for trainer C Johnston, and the 7.15pm Streamline Taxis - Always Going The Distance Handicap.
The function room set for guests during Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice
Race sponsorship at Brighton comes with a trophy presentation to the winning owner and an invitation for the winning connections to celebrate trackside, a small but permanent mark of the evening filed in the official record of racing at Brighton for anyone who wants to look it up.
A trophy presentation on the racecourse during the evening for Martlets Hospice
Why Supporting Local Matters
"As a local business, we believe there's a bigger picture too. When local people and businesses choose to support Streamline, it enables us to keep investing back into the city we all live and work in. We want that support to help us give something back to the charities, organisations and community causes that matter to all of us as residents."
The full list of raffle prizes donated for Martlets Hospice
"Raising around £400 for Martlets was a fantastic result, but the evening was about more than the amount raised. It was about collaboration, connection and showing what can happen when local people and businesses come together."
"We work with many more fantastic businesses across Brighton & Hove and hope to involve even more of them as we continue to grow the event and our support for Martlets in the years ahead," Simeon added. Streamline has previously spoken about its long-running support for Martlets and the wider Southern Hospice Group, and this year's racecourse evening looks set to become an annual fixture.
Group of guests posing with the winner's decanter at Brighton Racecourse during Streamline Taxis' Martlets Hospice evening
With representatives from Martlets on hand and close to a dozen local businesses pitching in prizes without being asked twice, it's the kind of evening that says more about Brighton and Hove's business community than any advert could.
Balloons in the function room as Streamline Taxis' evening for Martlets Hospice wrapped up
That accounts for every photo and the video now, apart from one you haven't sent me yet: PHOTO-2026-09-03-19-35-17_18.jpg, the last one from that big batch. Worth flagging early, from what I saw of it earlier it looked like a near-duplicate of the group decanter photo already sitting in Block 20, so when you send it I may suggest leaving it out rather than repeating that shot a second time, but I'll take a proper look when it comes through.
Read More From ImJustBrighton
Brighton and Hove Streamline Taxis: The Local App to Use Instead of Uber →Find Out More
Donate to Martlets Hospice → Streamline Taxis → Brighton Racecourse →