Brighton & Hove City Council Reviews 

Hello there,

I would just like to provide feedback on the overall end to end experience for someone using the Brighton and hove council services.

I don’t say this lightly when I say this might be one of the worst services I have used. Impossible to speak to anyone to get help, IVR messages longer than the solution to my problems, and no insight into how difficult they make doing anything for customer. This is from parking through to council tax.

The online service is practically redundant and provides no benefit, it only adds complexity and stress to customer. Simple issues that should be resolved quickly now take up serious effort and time for anyone looking to get them resolved.

That fact this has bothered me so much that I have felt the need to provide this feedback should tell you one thing, but the fact I have never gone to the lengths to provide my personal thoughts and feedback before should tell you another.

I am sorry to all those that have had to experience the stress and inept quality of their services.

If some serious changes aren’t made to how they understand the customer journey and what matters to customer then I think B&H council will grind to a halt, stalled by bureaucracy and waste, unable to deliver any value to those unfortunately living in the constituent.

I have dragged on now, but I hope I have made it abundantly clear my dissatisfaction for the lack of understanding for those using their services.

I also do not blame any individuals within the system either, all those I have spoken to on the phone have been very considerate.

This is not in regards to any individual that works for the city council, just the Council Tax System. I have spent months attempting to update my address with them and set up monthly payments by Email with no response, to this day. I had to call them from my holiday in Greece just to find out how much the direct debit amount would be, after I missed the first payment, because I was not notified that my details had been updated and payments were scheduled. I am now paying more every month because of a lack of communication and there's nothing I can do about it. Lastly, I have attempted to pay online today (as I missed the scheduled payment, which was entirely my fault) and apparently my address details don't match, after I finally thought they had been updated and they must be as I am finally scheduled for payments. After all that, I'm back to square one and will have to call on my lunch break just to make the payments that I have been trying to pay this whole time. Update your systems past 2004, please, I'm begging at this point, I just want to pay my council tax. If I had any kind of difficulty using computers I can't even imagine how i'd get this done. Well I can, as the phone line is the only way to actually communicate in both directions.

The local authority broke the law several times during a court hearing. They knowingly submitted lies in their final evidence. They failed to get proper authorisation for the medical records, subsequently breaking the law by accessing and reading the medical records. They employed the wrong professional to perform the assessment.They broke the equality ack by calling the father paranoid, with zero medical records to support this. They did not perform equal assessments of both parents. They failed to look into the mothers criminal history, and it turns out she has a record for assault. The local authority were not interested in the fact the mother intentionally interrupted family time on several occasions with less than a days notice, and failed to attempt to reschedule the missed contact between the father and son. There were many more failings performed by the local authority, and the kicker, nobody will get in any trouble for breaking multiple laws in order to take the child from the father. It would appear that the local government are above the law.

Brighton Council are useless.
The streets are overgrown with weeds, there is rubbish everywhere and many streets in the city are covered with illegal graffiti and tags. There is no real police presence in the city, apart from when there is a road traffic incident, when half of the station turn up!
The town of my 60s childhood has been reduced to a post apocalyptic nightmare where there is anarchy on the streets and no respect for people or property!

One star is being polite, This City is not worth the £200 increase on my Council tax, Its obvious we are paying the dept of i360. What do the Brighton Council spend tax payers money on as the streets are over grown with weeds, roots bringing up the pavement and grass nothing is maintained just rubbish everywhere that is rarely cleaned up. When I visited Mumbai the streets were cleaner and neater than Brighton.

No compassion

Brighton and Hove Council Tax department is an absolute shambles.

I have had an on going issue since August 2024 chasing weekly with still no response. I do not own a property in Brighton, let alone two properties- yet I am being informed I am being charged 100% surcharge of council tax on an empty property. Which is tenanted, which I do not own. There's not cross wires on the website, all info provided is correct.
It's also saying I've not paid any council tax for 2024, I have confirmation receipts sent from B&HCC via email.

If you want to contact Brighton council you're better off purchasing a Ouija Board. I tried calling at opening time 09:30 but there's already a maximum number of callers in the queue. There is no way to contact this pitiful service.

Roads and footpaths look better in most parts of Eastern Europe. It is also impossible to get telephone help regarding basic council tax account matters like registering for an online account management profile. But they are excellent at issuing late fees, summons notices.

We spent almost a year trying to report dangerous and overgrown trees owned by the council and received no response to three consecutive letters and emails.

The trees were dropping dead branches in the high winds and storms and the excessive ivy growth had come away several times in large chunks falling onto our property. The risk of damage to the high level telecom intake, buildings and pedestrians had become an accident waiting to happen and so we were obliged to undertake the necessary work ourselves.

We submitted a planning application for tree surgery to eight of the trees which was finally approved in August 2024 Informing the council at all stages, we employed an approved professional tree specialist to have the work completed in January 2025, which is the best season after the leaf fall and before growth of the new buds.

The tree surgeon produced excellent work all in one day with a fully competent team and completed most of the cutting and clearance by the afternoon. However, a Brighton council arboriculture officer came onto the site and stopped their work before they could finish and so they were unable to shape the final 3 trees.

We have not received any explanation from the arboriculture officer as to why they stopped the work. The trees had not been managed for at least 25 years. We spent 9 months trying to consult with the council with no response and yet they are able to disrupt and stop good work in a single day!
The bank of trees now appear to be disproportionate in scale with the trees that have been trimmed looking cared for whilst those that have not been trimmed looking bedraggled and uncared for!

The level of ignorance and incompetence within this council is unbelievable and unacceptable. The events have been reported to customers feedback at Brighton and Hove CC. We have received the customary automated response and no more. Ultimately, and thankfully we can now at least apply to the ombudsman asking for a reimbursement of our costs, and for an independent body to seriously question the council’s liability.

Got an email from them to tell me I owe them £7 from my council tax 9 years ago. Absolute weirdos.
Had to pay it. It's not about the money, but why after 9 years to chase £7?

Tried using the website to switch to E billing as requested by the council in an email.

Took time out of my day to try multiple times to do this but the website doesn’t work! I see other people have said they’ve had the same issue trying to do the same thing

I tried to contact them using the contact form so they could be aware there is a problem and guess what… the contact form doesn’t work either!

Brighton and Hove Council, Don’t ask us to take time out of our day to do you a favour (move to paperless) and then not even have the proper infrastructure in place for us to do so! Absolute cheek

Even when someone has passed away brighton and hove council make it as difficult as possible to inform them - shame on you.

Its impossible to get through and if you do not have all of the details of they deceased then you cannot even fill in the form online.

As a council you lack any compassion!!!

Every other company (utilities) has a dedicated service to help you with such a terrible situation.

But Brighton and Hove council don't see a death as important.

Would give it a zero star, spoke to a guy called Phil his tone was passive aggressive.

wanted to switch to the e-billing as the council tax required but cant do it because they asking about some reference number from the last bill which I cant find anywhere, so I was trying to send a message to the support team which does not work either! it takes me all around the circle..also trying to make complain but the same scenario so maybe council should make their online service a bit more clear and easy to use ? cant change anything cant ask for help and also make a complain so useless! can demand from people but when you need something then is a miracle .

Have been trying to talk to someone for the past 7 days

being left holding on for over an hour.

One star is really one too many. Waited 57 minutes to query an overpayment on my council tax. The person dealing was just looking it up when the phone cut off automatically because I had been on the phone for an hour !! Needless to say they didn't phone back. I had previously tried online and by email, again without success.

You pay and they fine you.
Group of frustrated individual without any meanings in the society .

Impossible to get on the phone even though unable to answer query about Council Tax on their website. All week long AI recorded message says that they have reached their capacity and cannot answer the phone!
Absolutely disgraceful bunch of idiots

Visited for an afternoon, paid for parking using website given to us by officer and got a PCN 10 minutes after paying. Can't appeal since I don't live in UK? Have plenty of proof I paid!

Reading the Brighton bus lane scam now and wondering if I get even more tickets. Would avoid Brighton if I had known about how unfriendly this town is to tourists! If you must visit, find a ticket machine, but I would honestly avoid Brighton. Town needs money and it shows...

Trying to get in touch with Brighton council, but even for this I need a UK post code, so it's clear they're just scamming overseas visitors for money. Bet it was a Brexit town too... no more EU funding so now they need to find another way to get that money. Very disappointed

Terrible city, overpriced and so woke it’s a joke! Don’t bother visiting you’ll be charged extortionate prices for parking and will probably be forced into a bus lane where you will be charged again. Used to love this city but the council have made it clear outsiders are not welcome!!