As a resident of the South West, I see one of our local Town Councils is considering the introduction of on street parking permits to the tune of up to £100 per car per annum.
I personally welcome this proposal as our narrow main A class roads through villages are getting totally clogged up with cars parked both sides of the road and seriously impeding traffic flows.
If permits are widely introduced, then residents living along busy main routes may feel coerced into converting their front gardens into off street parking and help cut local journey times by half.
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What's the betting that the same council which had just set up a scheme to encourage them not to park on the road would then refuse planning permission for the driveways?
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If permits are widely introduced, then residents living along busy main routes may feel coerced into converting their front gardens into off street parking and help cut local journey times by half.
I don't see why people should be effectively forced to making their gardens into ugly driveways if they don't want to. An Englishman's home is his castle after all.
This sort of solution really is just another easy money raiser for the council who quite frankly get enough and spend on ridiculous things anyway. If you want to cut congestion on busy routes there should more attempts to address the route of the problem, high prices in cities forcing people to move out and commute longer distances?, people using cars unnecessarily in town, the school run etc. You wouldn't want to be coerced into moving closer to where you work.
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We have parking permits where I live because its close to the town centre, so there is a lot of pressure from workers parking in residential streets who should be parking at their place of work or public car parks. But we only pay £20, plus £5 for a book of 10 tokens for visitors. I think that is about the maximum to be considered reasonable - it pays for policing of the restriction, without raising much for the local Council. I wouldn't be happy if it increased.
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>>I don't see why people should be effectively forced to making their gardens into ugly driveways if they don't want to. An Englishman's home is his castle after all.>>
I agree that an Englishman`s home is his castle, but roads are public highways and not for the use of private residential parking bays and used as an extension to their homes.
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But we only pay£20, plus £5 for a book of 10 tokens for visitors. I think that is about the maximum to be considered reasonable - it pays for policing of the restriction, without raising much for the local Council. I wouldn't be happy if it increased.
Interesting.
Our local council currently has several 'second stage consultations' in progress with regard to introducing resident only parking zones in areas around the town centre, the football ground and the hospital. The proposed charges are £120 p.a. for first car, £90 p.a. for a second car and a maximum of 50 visitor passes per year. They reckon they could only just break even at that level! Consequently we now have the ridiculous situation where the residents' groups that originally campaigned for a resident only zone as a solution to their parking problems are now organising petitions to try and stop the scheme!
Also many of the small local businesses, dentists, vets, chiropractor and shops in the areas have suddenly realised that as they have no off-street parking and there are no public car parks in three of the affected areas then there will be nowhere for their customers to park. Hence these businesses will die a slow painful death and the areas will slowly lose all their local amenities.
Personally I'm not affected but I think these schemes have to be well thought through as they can cause damage to an area which nobody ever intended to be a consequence.
Cockle
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Cockle - I used to live in an area with £20 a car permit and £5 for a book of 10 visitors passes. The rules there were you had 1 hour of free parking, with no return within the next hour.
In which case something like this would eliminate the problems faced by most of the shops and businesses, unless they have customers present for more than an hour (eg. chiropracter?)
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Here in SW London the council recently upped the £50 yearly charge to £85. I think for a 2nd car (in your name) it is £400.
I also hear that the council is not issuing permits to certain houses so you can end up renting a place and not being allowed to park a car legally.
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Hawesy, I think that would solve the problem but it doesn't appear to be an option, from what I understand it is 50 visitors passes per annum, full stop; once you've used your allocation, no more visitors.
Whisper it, but I'm in favour of the limit, it means my visiting of the in-laws will be cut down a little!!! These things do have their positive sides!
Seriously though, I think these schemes can appear attractive on the surface but the devil can be in the detail and more often than not the status quo is probably the best option.
Cockle
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Totally agree with Cockle - there can be unforseen downsides with such things. Residents sometimes like to jump of the bandwagon to deter non-residential parking in their streets and then whinge when they get caught out bending the rules. It happened where my sister lives. They campaigned long/loud for a restriction and then started whingeing when residents with more than one car found themselves falling foul of the rulesand geting fines. I really think they believed the rules would only really affect non-residents.
People do seem to think they own the space outside their homes and it's not uncommon for people to have driveways constructed just to ensure nobody else parks outside their house. Ironically, these people often choose not to use their own drives but park outside someone else's property thereby selfishly adding to the overall parking problem. This has happened in several streets nearby and is causing all sorts of knock on effects. What really annoys me though is that those who had the foresight to move a bit further away from the station, town centre etc. and shouldn't really expect serious parking problems, wind up inheriting them because those who chose to live closest to the amenities then complain about the parking and traffic problems associated with such amenities. The result in Bromley is
that all the congestion and parking problems have been shifted to the area just outside the controlled zone. IMO this is hardly fair on those residents.
As for forcing everyone to park off-road. I can see that having a serious impact on property prices for anyone who lives in a property where no such provision is possible. Also, on a more environmental note, I'd hate to see all our front gardens paved over, there's little enough greenery around as it is without turning gardens into car parks.
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