Western Road set for major rebuild and controversial Red Route
Congestion on Western Road, the stretch now facing major rebuilding work and a proposed Red Route Image: Brighton & Hove City Council
One of Brighton and Hove's busiest streets is about to get a long-awaited overhaul. Western Road, used daily by thousands of drivers, bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians, is set for major reconstruction this autumn, alongside a parking crackdown that has already split opinion in the city.
The scheme covers the stretch of Western Road between Holland Road and Montpelier Road, and is due to start on Monday 28 September, subject to final approvals. The work is expected to take around 45 days, with phased closures designed to limit the overall disruption, and pedestrian access maintained wherever it is safe to do so.
Resurfacing work was originally approved as part of the council's capital programme back in February. But an assessment of the road this month found the damage runs deeper than expected, with significant deterioration in parts of the carriageway meaning sections will need to be rebuilt, not just resurfaced. The work will include deeper excavation, reconstruction of damaged sections, drainage repairs and improvements to road infrastructure.
"Residents have been asking us to sort out Western Road for a long time. We are listening and that's exactly what we're going to do. This is such a busy route, alongside cars and lorries, around 700 buses pass along the corridor every day taking thousands of bus passengers between Hove and the city centre. The road surface is not good enough."
Councillor Trevor Muten, Cabinet member for Transport and City Infrastructure
Detailed traffic management plans are still being finalised, but the council says it will share information on bus diversions, deliveries and access arrangements with residents and businesses before work starts. "We don't want to leave this any longer," Councillor Muten added. "It has to be done before the temperature drops."
Western Road today: congestion, an existing red line elsewhere in the city, and vehicles parked on the double yellow lines Image: Brighton & Hove City Council
A Red Route once the road is rebuilt
Once resurfacing is complete, the council wants to mark a Red Route onto the new surface between Holland Road and Montpelier Road, subject to a final decision by Cabinet in September. The change would replace the current double yellow lines with double red lines, meaning no stopping at any time except in marked bays, enforced by CCTV rather than a Civil Enforcement Officer having to be on site.
The council says deliveries would only be permitted in the new loading bays, with a bay suspension available in advance for large deliveries, house moves or building work. Blue Badge holders can still be dropped off or picked up, so long as the vehicle isn't left parked, and taxis can stop for passengers. Emergency services and bin lorries are exempt throughout.
In response to consultation feedback, the council says it will install 10 new loading bays along the route, adding 140 metres of loading space, plus more disabled bays on Western Road and its side streets. Red lines would also be extended slightly into some side roads, including at the Lansdowne Place junction, to protect pedestrian crossing points. A council planning drawing, "Red Route Disabled Bay Radius" (B&H/PPT/WRS001), maps each proposed and existing disabled bay along the route with a 50-metre catchment circle, to show how close disabled parking would remain to shops and homes.
The Western Road scheme is funded from a £3.2 million government grant for the council's Bus Service Improvement Plan, with around £200,000 allocated to this route specifically.
What's happened where Red Routes already exist
The Western Road scheme follows Red Routes introduced on London Road, Preston Road and Lewes Road in April 2024. The council has since published two years of data on their effect, and it's the strongest evidence either side has to point to.
A separate analysis by Brighton and Hove Buses, the city's largest operator, looked specifically at passenger injury incidents on London Road and Lewes Road: 14 between April and October 2023, falling to 2 in the same months of 2024, an 85.7 per cent reduction. Monitoring sensors also recorded lower nitrogen dioxide levels within six months of the routes opening, a reduction the council says has continued since.
On the question traders raise most often, whether losing kerbside stopping drives customers away, the council's own footfall count for London Road shows the opposite: 4.78 million movements of people in the year to April 2024, rising to 4.89 million in the year to April 2025, over 100,000 more after the Red Route went in.
"We know one of the concerns from businesses about Red Routes is that it will discourage shoppers. But our data clearly shows there's been no impact on the number of people using London Road, which is great news."
Councillor Trevor Muten, Cabinet member for Transport and City Infrastructure
What Western Road residents actually said
The formal consultation on the Western Road proposal ran for six weeks, closing on 4 January 2026, and drew 1,032 responses, 91 per cent of them from local residents and just 3 per cent from businesses. The council's own summary of the feedback lists the benefits it says people raised: fewer bus injuries, improved air quality, less congestion and more reliable bus journeys. It also acknowledges the practical concern behind most objections, a lack of loading bays and drop-off points, which is what shaped the 10 new loading bays now planned.
Full details of the scheme, including the disabled bay radius map and the letter sent to residents and businesses in the area, are published on the council's Western Road Red Route documents page, and the original consultation remains viewable on the council's Your Voice platform.
Before and after: a Brighton street before and after a Red Route was introduced, with new loading bay markings. Image: Brighton & Hove City Council
Not everyone is convinced
Despite the figures from the existing routes, the Red Route plan has faced sustained opposition from traders on Western Road, running well before this week's news. Florist Pauline Ford, of Florian Florists, launched the first petition in April 2025, shortly after Cabinet agreed in principle to proceed with a Western Road design. She argued the restrictions could disproportionately affect disabled and elderly customers who rely on convenient parking or drop-off points, and that her own shop would struggle to receive deliveries of large floral arrangements. That petition, hosted on Change.org under the title "Protect Our Local Independent Businesses", grew to 1,690 signatures.
A second, larger petition followed more than a year later. In July 2026, Alistair Gourlay, managing director of Real Patisserie, presented a petition signed by 3,800 people, titled "Say No to the Red Route on Western Road", to the council. Mr Gourlay said a core group of objectors had spent hundreds of hours speaking to those most affected, including disabled people, carers, delivery drivers, tradespeople and taxi drivers, and had found that most did not want the red lines. He also argued that the number of accidents on Western Road had already been falling over the past three years, and questioned whether the scheme would meaningfully improve bus journey times.
Other traders along the corridor have raised similar concerns about deliveries and loading, echoing complaints made by businesses on Preston Road, where a shopkeeper described trade since the 2024 Red Route as "horrendous".
"Double yellow lines on Western Road are routinely abused, leaving even blue badge holders unable to park. Cars block pavements, vans obstruct dropped kerbs, access is restricted, sight lines are impeded, making Western Road more hazardous than it needs to be, especially for disabled people, who are less mobile, and parents with buggies."
Councillor Trevor Muten, responding to objectors
If Cabinet approves the plan in September, the Red Route will be installed under an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order, which allows the council to make rapid adjustments in the first 12 months if problems emerge, though it cannot run for longer than 18 months without a further decision. Rule-breakers would receive warning letters for the first two weeks, before fines of £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days, come into effect.
The Western Rd Community Group
Beyond the two petitions, opposition has organised into a standing campaign. The Western Rd Community Group, running under the banner "Don't Paint Us Out", has staffed stalls at community events collecting names and donations, and set up a website, noredroute.org, to coordinate its campaign.
Its printed material sets out its objections under three headings: shops, which it says will find it harder to attract passing trade; disabled people, who it says will lose parking close to the street; and the surrounding residential roads, which it argues will absorb the displaced traffic and parking. Its leaflets describe the scheme as feeling "like a tax on motorists", and list automatic fines for stopping to visit a shop, reduced disabled parking, problems for delivery drivers and tradespeople, and reduced trade for shops on the street.
The group also disputes the council's safety case directly. Its own literature states that injury collisions on Western Road have fallen 50 per cent in the past two years without a Red Route, and that the street already has a better safety record than any Red Route in the city. This is the campaign's own figure, not one this article has independently verified, and it isn't the same measurement as the council's published data, which covers London Road, Preston Road and Lewes Road together rather than Western Road on its own.
The group says it believes the council's decision is unlawful and has instructed a barrister and solicitor to challenge it, running a fundraising campaign through the legal crowdfunding platform CrowdJustice under the title "No to Red Route." In one campaign video, the group states it has "already raised thousands behind the scenes" but says it needs more before it can bring the case to court. This article has not independently verified the legal grounds or funds raised, which remain the campaign's own claims.
A political split over the scheme
The campaign has drawn attention from more than one party, and not always in the same direction. Brighton & Hove Conservatives shared photos of the Western Rd Community Group's stall on 16 August, framing it as councillors supporting the campaign, and Conservative Councillor Ivan Lyons has posted his own update backing the group's position.
The Green Party's position has been more mixed. A leaflet distributed in the Brunswick & Adelaide ward, where the Red Route falls, featured local Green campaigner Annie Pickering alongside Councillor Ollie Sykes under the headline "Driving Change the Right Way." Rather than opposing the scheme outright, it welcomed the safety record of the existing Lewes Road Red Route while pressing the council to keep listening to traders. Cllr Sykes urged the council "to listen to businesses about the impact of the scheme and to allow for early adjustments to be made to the scheme if called for, for example, to loading bays," and was quoted saying:
"It's great to hear about fewer road accidents after the Lewes Road Red Route was introduced. We want safer roads in Hove too, but I also want to support the cherished independent retailers that are part of Brunswick Town's distinct feel. We ask the council to listen to retailers and to be open to early improvements, once the scheme is in place."
Councillor Ollie Sykes, Brighton & Hove Green Party, Brunswick & Adelaide
The same leaflet noted the Green Party's recent by-election win in the neighbouring Goldsmid ward, describing it as one of the biggest swings the party has seen in a Brighton & Hove by-election.
What residents are saying
A public Facebook group, "No Red Route - Western Rd, Hove", has become a hub for residents opposed to the scheme, run by admin Catherine Lane. Among the posts shared there this month, member Laura King called on Brighton and Hove's Chamber of Commerce to back the campaign to save independent local businesses, a post that drew seven likes and several comments of support. Laura King also shared a headline attributed to The Argus, "Permit parking spaces in city could be scrapped for loading bays," though the underlying story wasn't accessible for us to verify further, so we can't confirm what it says or whether it specifically concerns Western Road.
Catherine Lane also shared the Green Party leaflet featuring Cllr Ollie Sykes, framing it within the group as evidence of division among Green councillors on the issue, and thanked Cllr Ivan Lyons for his support after he posted his own update to the group. Elsewhere, a photograph posted by Laura King of Red Route lines being painted alongside a cycle lane elsewhere in the city drew a mixed reaction in the comments, including from one member who called it "obsurd."
Council plans show red lines extending into the Lansdowne Place junction to protect a pedestrian crossing. Image: Brighton & Hove City Council
This article is based on a Brighton and Hove City Council press release sent to ImJustBrighton via Vuelio, council reports, planning documents and public consultation records, and material published by the Western Rd Community Group, the Brighton & Hove Green Party and shared in local Facebook groups. For the latest Brighton and Hove news, visit ImJustBrighton.
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