The legendary Brighton Pride is back this weekend. From Saturday, August 3 to Sunday, August 4, the seaside city will be taken over by thousands donned in drag, glitter and LGBTQ+ flags, celebrating love and resilience and embarking on a parade to Preston Park.
It’s one of the biggest, most anticipated events in Brighton’s calendar, so disruption to the roads and transport network is to be expected. Heading to Brighton this weekend? Here’s all the travel and transport information you need to know.
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Road closures in Brighton
From 8pm on Thursday August 1 to 4am the next morning, the A23 at Preston Road will be closed in both directions to allow for set up. The Pride parade will close down most of the city centre between 9am and 4pm on Saturday. The roads affected will be:
- Kingsway - Grand Avenue to King's Road - Eastbound
- Kingsway – King's Road to Waterloo Street - Westbound
- King's Road
- Grand Junction Road - Westbound
- West Street
- North Street
- Castle Square
- Old Steine
- Marlborough Place
- Gloucester Place
- St George’s Place
- York Place
- London Road
- Preston Road - from New England Road to Stanford Avenue
- Stanford Avenue - Preston Road to Beaconsfield Villas
- Beaconsfield Road - slip lane and bus lane will be closed at Preston Circus
On top of those, there will be further closures between 10am on Saturday to 1am on Sunday and between 11am on Sunday to 4am on Monday. They are:
- St James’s Street
- Steine Street
- Manchester Street
- Charles Street
- Broad Street
- Madeira Place
- Camelford Street
- Margaret Street
- Wentworth Street
- New Steine
- Rock Place
- Pavilion Street
- Prince’s Street
- George Street
- Dorset Gardens
- High Street - (from St James’s Street to Ardingly Street)
- Chapel Street – (from St James’s Street to Ardingly Street)
- Cavendish Street
- Ardingly Street – (from St James’s Street Mews to High Street)
Will buses still be running?
There will be two shuttle bus services from the Old Steine and the Waterhall Campsite to and from Preston Park across the whole weekend.
Routes 5 and 5A and Metrobus services 271 and 272 will be diverted on Thursday evening while the event is being set up. Across the rest of the weekend, buses will still be running but routes will be altered according to road closures. You can find more specific details of diversions here.
Further travel disruption
Train strikes caused travel chaos and cancelled journeys at last year’s event. So, this year Brighton Pride organisers and Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) announced that they would be running additional trains with extra carriages.
With large crowds expected, organisers have advised that you give yourself an hour to get from any of the festival sites back to Brighton station at the end of the day. A queuing system has been put in place at the station entrance to help people get to their trains efficiently.
How to get to Brighton Pride
Drivers are advised to find parking outside the city and travel in via public transport. Those travelling from London can hop on an hourly National Express bus from London Victoria bus station. National Express also travels to Brighton from other stations across the UK.
By train, you can go by East Coastway, which serves Lewes, Seaford and Eastbourne, West Coastway going through Shoreham-by-Sea, Worthing and Chichester, or Brighton Mainline, which will take you via Haywards Heath, Gatwick Airport and London.
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