Find out how to contact the council online, by phone or face to face and how to use our online services if you don’t have access to the internet.
We’re committed to providing you with good customer service in line with our Customer Promise.
We understand that customer needs vary and not everyone can access our services in the same way. Therefore, we provide 3 different ways you can contact us:
Contact us:
These have been challenging times for local authorities, and we need to ensure our limited resources are best placed to meet your needs. By focusing on customer needs, rather than preferences, we can make sure everyone gets fair access to council services.
Therefore, we ask you to contact us online if you can. This allows us to help other customers who may need additional support.
The best way to contact us is through the Brighton & Hove City Council website.
You can complete our self-service forms which go straight to the service you need.
Those services who don’t have online forms will have email addresses for you to contact them.
We aim to respond to online contact within 10 working days. At busier times or for more complex enquiries, we aim to let you know how long you may have to wait.
Our customer service centres have self-serve computers with free internet access that you can use to contact council services.
If you’re a library member, you can use the computers in our libraries
Find services to help you use a computer or another digital device and improve your online skills.
If you find it difficult to contact us online, you can phone the service you need.
Our phone numbers are listed on the relevant service pages on our website.
Our main phone lines are open at a minimum from 9:30am to 1:30pm Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays,).
These opening times allow our staff time to process and respond to the phone enquiries as well as the digital enquiries received from online forms and emails.
Some services have longer opening hours. These are published on our website and on the recorded message of the specific phone line you are calling.
We aim to answer your call within an average of 10 minutes. We aim to let you know if wait times exceed 10 minutes.
You can also phone our switchboard between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
Phone 01273 29 0000 if you:
Switchboard staff will help you with basic queries and signpost you to the correct service.
Our customer service centres have free self-serve phones that you can use to contact council services.
You can visit the following libraries and use our free self-serve phoneline to contact council services.
Go to:
Services offer face to face appointments on a case-by-case basis where your query couldn’t be resolved online or over the phone. This is to ensure everyone can contact and access our services.
If you don’t have access to a computer or phone or need help accessing our online services, visit one of our customer service centres.
You can access a range of council services at our customer service centres in Brighton & Hove.
At our Customer Service Centres, you can:
Our Customer Service Advisors can:
If we cannot help with your enquiry on the day, we'll offer you a phone call back service where the relevant service will aim to deal with your enquiry over the phone or make you a face-to-face appointment.
Our customer service centres do not:
Some services have buildings with reception points, such as Family Hubs and libraries. Service provision is based on customer need and we regularly review and adapt it as appropriate for relevant services.
Some staff, like social workers and environmental health staff carry out in person visits, inspections and appointments. These are arranged by the service and based on customer needs.
We welcome feedback on how you access and use our services. We use this feedback to drive continuous improvement across our services.
Complete our customer satisfaction survey to give us feedback on your experience of council services.
You can get a paper copy of the survey at our Customer Service Centres.
You can also: