Residents parking

[MikeF]

There is no national prohibition against on-street or ‘pavement’ parking except in relation to heavy commercial vehicles.

So it seems basically that parking is allowed anywhere it isn't "unreasonable". However I'm not sure what the legal definition of "unreasonable" is; it seems to be akin to "common sense" which often is anything but common sense. Also to park on a pavement ie footway it's necessary to drive on it which is illegal. The law seems a bit of an ass. By the same token surely if it's not unreasonable to drive a car on a footway it's not unreasonable to cycle on a footway?

[Cyril Haearn]

I much prefer parked cars to moving ones. So many vehicles is an unfortunate consequence of "progress" and economic growth. One reads a lot about car sharing. In Berlin it is so convenient people use it instead of the tube. One hopes that car ownership and use will become less attractive. Remember PM Camerons nudge unit?

[Elizabethsdad]

Where I live in Southampton the level of on street parking is a nightmare reducing roads to narrow single carriageways which become very unpleasant to negotiate when faced with aggressive road users trying to force you out of the way - traffic calming? Quite the opposite. Coupled with this is motorist leaving cars parked on the pavements - 'So there is room for cars to get by without hitting mine' - in some cases this means there is not room to get by on the pavement if for instance you happen to be pushing your mother in her wheelchair. Grr! And as for parking outside schools at school run times, just total selfish anarchy on the part of some parents.

[drossall]

In Germany many one-way streets have an exemption for cyclists who may use them in the "wrong" direction. Seems much too dangerous to me.

It's interesting though that our Highway Code, justifiably, tells pedestrians to walk on the right (i.e. facing traffic). I've not quite settled in my mind why pedestrians are better facing traffic and cyclists aren't. There was a Lord a while back who preferred to use one-way streets the wrong way for this reason. I wouldn't go against the law, but I sometimes wonder whether he was wrong.

[thirdcrank]

So it seems basically that parking is allowed anywhere it isn't "unreasonable". However I'm not sure what the legal definition of "unreasonable" is; it seems to be akin to "common sense" which often is anything but common sense. ...

Without trying to duck the issue, there's no hard-and-fast legal definition of "unreasonable" any more than there is of "unnecessary" which is the word used in the con and use regs. The necessity or reasonableness is a question of fact (rather than law) for the court to decide in an individual case. Decided cases ie the results of appeals to higher courts, resolve the law and the "facts" just give background material, but often open the floodgates that bit wider. Stopping to change a wheel with a punctured tyre would almost certainly be considered "necessary." Repairing cars in the street is probably unnecessary.

This thread is specifically about residential parking and the practical and political realities have to be considered. I don't know if a prosecution has ever been run on the sole basis that a resident was permanently parking outside their own house, but I've not heard of it (that's by no means conclusive.) If it's not happened in the past, I cannot see it happening now. Theoretically, if somebody has off-street parking available, it's hard to see how parking on the highway is necessary, especially if the resident parks there to prevent others from doing so, but who will do anything? It's a big tide to turn back. If things came to some sort of head in an individual case, I fancy that if the police resorted to fixed penalties which were not accepted, the CPS would be unlikely to prosecute: not in the public interest.

I can only remember one case of somebody insisting on "their right" to park outside their own house when things got to the point of tickets being issued - by one of the most experienced road traffic officers in Leeds at that time - and complaints being made (which is why I was eventually involved.) This was in a terraced street only a couple of streets from where I spent the first few years of my life. (Not legally a "fact" in the case BTW but when we lived there, nobody had a car.) The street in question was a cul-de-sac and the house was the last house before the wall across the end of the street. The problem was that at some stage, long before residents had cars, the entrance to a school had been created in the wall, but to the right edge of the street, so the vehicle in question completely blocked the entrance when parked. The school was a "special school" where many of the children arrived, of necessity, by taxi or local authority transport. That was all still on-the-boil when I retired, having recommended that prosecution was becoming the only solution, so I don't know how it was eventually resolved. I've looked at the streetview to illustrate the story but a new primary school has been built with the gate in the middle of the street so parking on either side will not block it.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.80071 ... 312!8i6656

More generally, legislation is the job of central govt., but implementation is for the police and local highway authorities. I've posted before that local councillors will not upset residents over parking (search term <white funk>) The police no longer prioritise "roads policing" and within that, parking is off the radar.

[irc]

Planners could do more. An example being when a new block of flats was being built in central Glasgow in an area with very limited on street parking. There is a residents permit scheme. The new flats were given planning permission but it was made clear at that stage that none of the new flats would qualify for a permit. They still sold easily.

When the M8 was built in the 1960 an 70s part of the strategy for Glasgow city centre was to encourage public transport use and discourage car use by controlling the number of parking places.

A planning fail was when the new multi million pound hospital in south Glasgow was built without sufficient parking for staff despite being surrounds by acres of wasteland where a multi-storey car park or two could have been built. Being adjacent to the M8 the affect on local roads would have been pretty small.

At a national level the UK for intercity travel needs more roads. The motorway miles per capita or per vehicle are lower than most of Europe. No wonder they are congested.

[Vorpal]

I think that if on-street parking always required a permit, and it was made progressively more expensive
-for second, thrid, fourth, etc. vehicles
-for daytime, peak times, etc.
-for houses that have garages or off-street parking

Many, perhaps most people would find other places than the streets to park. Those parking on streets pay for the privilege, and th emoney cna go toward whatever local authorities think is appropriate.

Obviously, it also has to be enforced.

[thirdcrank]

As a part 2 to my lengthy post above, it's worth noting that yellow line parking has now been decriminalised (possibly not everywhere?) so enforcement is by Civil Enforcement Officers employed by local authorities rather than traffic wardens employed by the police. Contested cases are taken to an adjudicator, rather than the criminal courts. Apparently it's much less formal, but innocent until proven guilty does not apply.

I have no personal experience of this system but it seems that my own local authority is pretty keen, but remember this is yellow line rather than residential parking. This is from the policy guide:

Flat tyre - it is expected that the motorist will be with the vehicle and changing the wheel. Failure to carry a spare wheel or the correct tools to change a wheel is an avoidable problem and therefore not an acceptable reason to cancel a (ticket.)

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/A-Z%20of%2 ... 202013.pdf

No obvious concession to the fact that many modern cars have no spare wheel........
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On the subject of residents' parking schemes, these don't generally reduce the level of on-street parking. On the contrary they legitimate it but ration it. If cyclists have a problem with on street parking, it doesn't make much difference who is parked.

[Winders]

Planning policy these days is not keen on oversupplying off-street car parking - my local authority considers 1.5 spaces per dwelling a maximum figure for development outside of the city centre and wants much less in the centre or at locations close to public transport. The theory is that if you make it easy to own a car (through too much off-street parking for example) then more people will, which isn't sustainable development and therefore contrary to national and local policy. Everywhere I've worked in the U.K. has set a maximum for car parking not a minimum.


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly bog brush using hovercraft full of eels

[blackbike]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

[andrewk]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

An extreme view. At odds with public sentiment. You may dislike cars but the majority do not share your view...most people want a car of their own and somewhere convenient to park it. Residents' parking schemes are necessary in cities otherwise residential roads become clogged with commuters' vehicles with residents being unable to park. How is this selfish?

[Elizabethsdad]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

I would have thought the opposite - if a household is limited to having only one residents parking space they will be more likely to only have the one car rather than 2 or 3 cars as seems to be the case so often these days. Of course any system will be abused, I lived in a flat once with allocated private parking spaces and was very annoyed with the little scrote who left his BMW parked in my space all night - wasn't even a resident. To this day I regret not just slashing all his tyres.

[pete75]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

An extreme view. At odds with public sentiment. You may dislike cars but the majority do not share your view...most people want a car of their own and somewhere convenient to park it. Residents' parking schemes are necessary in cities otherwise residential roads become clogged with commuters' vehicles with residents being unable to park. How is this selfish?

There's a simple answer - double yellow lines.

Those who want a convenient place to park a car should provide it at their own expense and off road.

[Tangled Metal]

Well i live in a right northern town. Terraced houses everywhere. Washing lines across the road, kids kids kicking a can around bouncing on the cobbles and we never lock our doors. Almost all that is not true but courtesy of the old coronation credits that's what one southern member of our family thinks tree north is like (Cheltenham ladies college educated so we let her off).

The true bit is the large number of terraced houses dating from 1600s but mostly Victorian. The point being cars were not invented so now these roads are often passable one car at a time due to street car parking. Being near the city centre I think they should provide restrictions on parking with nearby communal parking spaces. Being near to town i can guarantee shoppers will use such a facility.

In this modern age our nation has built itself around personal transportation. That's how things are and is will always be a balancing act over who you inconvenience the most. Residents or passersby. You can't just take one side's rights to make it easier for the other side

My street is similar terraced houses, each house width is the length of a small to medium sized family car like a Zafira. Not a problem, it's a dead end road anyway. The big issue that came in over the last 10 years is more multiple car owners. When i moved in the only parking issue at my end of the street was due to a battle between a neighbour with limited mobility and a 40 year old lady from a street running off ours at the other end. She could not reverse her car up the side road or out of it so parked in our street. As close to her end as possible which occasionally meant in front of my neighbour's house, his spot! Valid reason for him needing it. Anyway she wasn't seen parking in our street due to a confrontation. She learnt quickly to reverse her car!

Back then from my house to the end there were loads of places to park. Over the last 10 years It's Become congested. Not good getting your young child out of the car into the middle of a road, especially how a few people drive fast round the bend in the road. Reason for this parking problem? Commercial vans. Householders have their own car or cars plus trade vans from their employer or their own trade vans. I believe residential areas should not be used by companies as secure van parks. They should not be allowed in residential streets. My little pet rant these days.

Resident parking? New builds design it in better but realize we've a very old housing stock. It's not going to be cheap to solve this issue. Most posts seem to be applying more to new builds or recent builds. I wonder if most of those posts are by forum members to the south?

[jgurney]

It still seems to me odd that motorists are assuming they are entitled to use public property to store their possessions.

Could I legally obtain an old but (just) roadworthy transit or similar van, tax and insure it, and park it in a street then never move it (except to the testing station for the annual MoT) and use it as a kind of garden shed?

If so then why cannot I simply place a shed in the same space and pay MVED as a rent for the space?

If I cannot keep my shed in the street, why can motorists keep their cars there?