He has no comeback if you remove any of the obstructions as it is, as you are well aware, a public highway.
It could be, however, regarded by the police as a potential problem for emergency vehicles or other services if he blocks the road unnecessarily for such long periods. Perhaps a quiet word with the authorities.....? ..:-)
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He has no comeback if you remove any of the obstructions as it is as you are well aware a public highway.
As long as you have no intention to deprive the person of said articles. To put them in his front garden is fine. Or you could take them to the police station as lost property ;)
Edited by Altea Ego on 08/10/2009 at 15:33
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Something similar at flats above one of our shops.
There is parking for about 5 cars.
One of the guys above the flat has 3 cars (he lives on his own).
When he goes out in the morning, he spreads the other 2 cars out so that no one can take the space. When he gets back at night, he bunches them all up again.
Oh and he has a CCTV camera mounted on front of his flat overlooking the cars. Thats the type of guy he is!
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And similar to the OP, my aunt has a villa in Bulgaria.
there, the locals put out the gallon containers of water on the street to reserve their space in front of their houses.
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I once got told off for parking on a residential street legally. I said to the woman in reply "I will move my car because I don't trust you". I parked round the corner in the end, same day I discovered a nail in my tyre and I always do wonder. The tyre fitter reckoned I had just gone over it and it wasn't done on purpose and I hope he was right.
On my street further up there is a block of rented houses (HA) and they all put cones out side their houses. It really makes me laugh as opposite there is a small hardly used school playing field which often has plenty of spaces. Essentialy all they have to do is cross the road.
Thankfully next door to me is rented (private landlord) and its got four young professonals living in it they all work in town so have no cars.
I am sure some fo the neighbours must hate us having two cars though.
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I once lived in a shared terrace house where all 3 of us had a car, plus 1 or 2 frequent overnight visitors, each with their own car. No off road parking at all on any of the houses as the front gardens were too small.
The house was barely a car length wide, so I guess we were taking up room for about 4-5 houses all on our own.
How the neighbours must have been glad to see the back of us!
It was only on the day I handed the keys back to the letting agent did we find out that there was a garage that belonged to the property (on the next street) with space to also park a car in front of the garage...
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Just shows how unsuitable urban areas in this country are for our car-loving society...
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shows how badly planned this country is, and the lengths the anti car nutters in councils and governement will go
our house is near a GP surgery
all of the streets nearby are double yellow
the only places to park are drives which belong to the residents
the streets are regularly blocked up by cars on the double yellows or on the pavements attending the GP
funnily enough I saw council parking wardens (not seen them in this part of the country before) out giving them all tickets
which makes the GP surgery location totally non viable
you see and sensible country would organise doctors surgey in a place where patients could actually park, but oh no here in this country we put them in a place with no parking
i dont actually blame the drivers so much as the crazy way the roads and housing are planned
same as the way many new build homes are forced by the planners to have no car parking provision, when the builders and their customers desperately want parking spaces
its nothing intrinsically about this country other than the poor planning and road design imposed on the people largely by unelected idiots
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You know housing companies can get into big trouble for designing estates with lots of parking. The labour government introduced that around 12 years ago.
It was designed to discourage new home owners from owning cars, but it dosn't matter that the new greenfield estate might be 30 minute walk to the nearest regular bus stop!
Edited by Rattle on 08/10/2009 at 19:38
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Stevenage is famous for this. Large parts of the town were designed and built post-war and the designers envisaged an increase in prosperity such that as many as one in two households would eventually own a car - parking space was provided accordingly.
The net result was parked cars EVERYWHERE - verges, corners of roads, front gardens, you name it. Although I gather more verges have been properly "converted" into off-street parking bays now.
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Stevenage is famous for this. Large parts of the town were designed and built post-war and the designers envisaged an increase in prosperity such that as many as one in two households would eventually own a car - parking space was provided accordingly. The net result was parked cars EVERYWHERE - verges corners of roads front gardens you name it. Although I gather more verges have been properly "converted" into off-street parking bays now.
Stevenage is particularly blighted with the curse of vans and light commercial vehicles. Many people who already have at least one car bring them home at night and weekends and park them outside other people's houses because their own cars occupy their 'own' space. This is quite beneficial to the firms they work for because they do not have to provide parking space at their premises. One Saturday I counted 40 vans and light trucks parked along a 1 mile stretch of residential road. HGV's have been banished. I think there is scope for controls on the parking of lighter commercials too.
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Playing devil's advocate: these rants just say 'our family/household has four cars and nowhere to put them'. Not many families are forced to own that many - they just bought them because they could afford them, ignoring the question of where to leave them in between times. I.e.they created the problem. Why should the neighbours be inconvenienced?
Don't blame the planners - they get blamed for almost anything which doesn't suit someone or other.
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>>Don't blame the planners - they get blamed for almost anything which doesn't suit someone or other<<
Er, surely the job of the planners is to PLAN.
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So how many cars should the planners plan for, then Stu?! One per bedrooms perhaps, or do the have to take into account that the property may be converted into flats, or even worse bedsits?
Also I was more refering to Victorian/Edwardian housing, which, in the main, are highly unsuitable for cars.
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Er, surely the job of the planners is to PLAN.
So when my house was built in 1909 the planners should have taken into account we'd have at least two cars by now ;-)
Luckily for us, plenty of parking even if we had four cars.
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Depends on what you mean by planning. In Tokyo they certainly plan: no parking off road, no car.
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It's one of those middle-England curtain-twitcher type things that crack me up. Where I live I often have upto a 2 minute walk to my car as parking space is very, very limited. Everyone else is in the same boat, and it works OK.
But it does crack me up when you see people going to such extraordinary lengths to reserve a space outside their house. What would be really funny is if one day everyone in the street whipped out a ladder and blocked off the whole parking area!
I'd love to drive a battered skip of a car and remove all the obstacles and park it there to see what would happen. I'd expect a "tasty" note under the windscreen wiper at least :D
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I bet they are the same people whose towels are reserving the best sunbeds by the pool from the crack of dawn till it's cool enough for them to want to sit on them.
They are probably out in their air conditioned hire cars all day (motoring link!)
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I would like to express my thanks to Cliff Pope for starting this thread.
We haven't had a decent 'neighbour's parking' thread on the forum for quite some time, I hope this one will run.
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>>It's not as if he wants to keep a space clear for a delivery or something like that - he wants to reserve a section of road all day so that it is clear for him in the evening.>>
How do you know?
He might want to come home during the day.
He might have kids to pick up from school.
He might have a disabled relative.
I can understand the frustration, you live there and all you want to be able to do is to be able to park near your house.
I used to live in a road near a station, we had a drive though not all did, people at the end of the road near the station had all sorts of problems, mothers at home with young kids would go shopping and then have to park (in front of someone else's house!) 100 yards away and unload the car while watching the kids - nightmare.
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I know because I work nearby and can observe what happens during the day.
No, he doesn't have vital heavy deliveries 5 days a week, nor a disabled relative, nor need to come home during the day. He leaves, presumably for work, at some time before I get there at 7.45 am, puts his cones/ladder in the road, where it stays all day until he returns shortly before I leave work at 4 pm.
At 4 pm the street is half empty. On the occasions so far when I, or someone else now inspired to match my bravery, have used his space, he has parked next door or on the other side of the road. Presumably as soon as the intruder has gone he nips out and moves his car 20 feet back into his usual space, ready for a repeat performance the next day.
I am aware of the risk of provoking a potential raving nutter into doing some damage, so I am keeping away for a bit and watching the battle from a distance. If it shows signs of dying down I may fan it again by moving his ladder but leaving the space vacant for someone else to innocently nip into.
Yes, of course it's childish. It's just my way of trying to enjoy my mid-life crisis ;)
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>>>If it shows signs of dying down I may fan it again by moving his ladder but leaving the space vacant for someone else to innocently nip into.<<<
Sir ... What is the difference between an idiot and a fool?
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>>> Where I live I often have upto a 2 minute walk to my car <<<
A whole 2 minutes ... My goodness ! - How on Earth do you manage?
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 09/10/2009 at 11:21
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>>until he returns shortly before I leave work>>
Doesn't that say it all, he gets home and cant park outside his house because someone who works locally has done so, someone who presumably has no such problems when they themselves get home, a nice drive to park in perhaps.
I have a large drive and a double garage these days though have every sympathy for people who put there hard earned into a car and simply want to be able to park it outside where they live, and not outside where someone else lives because that just displaces the problem.
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>...sympathy for people who put their hard-earned into a car and simply want to be able to park it outside where they live...
Why? Just to be controversial, if the car is that important, how about putting some of that hard-earned into somewhere to keep it? My wardrobe is full, so if I buy a new suit or shirt, it has to displace an old one. I don't expect the local authority to provide and maintain storage for my clothes, so how is it different with cars?
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Just to be controversial >>
Not really much point answering then ;-)
You get the point - though just to say we dont all have the ability to earn a fortune and a significant proportion of this country's housing was bought before that car was invented yet alone widely available.
I reckon not parking outside some else's house (unless completely unavoidable) should be like not chucking rubbish over his fence, not playing loud music where he can hear it in his garden, not propositioning his wife, socially unacceptable.
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"not propositioning his wife"
That's where you lost me.
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"not propositioning his wife" That's where you lost me.
I mean you can park outside his house if his wife invites you to ;-)
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We have a similar problem with my next door neighbour. Most of the households in out cul-de-sac have two cars, some have works vans as well. Everyone gets on by putting at least one of their cars in their garage or drive and parking in front of their own driveway, and most of the people with vans are considerate enough to park them out on the main road.
My neighbours however, who own a small car car and an MPV, seem to regard the piece of road outside their house as their own private property. Both cars are always on the road in spite of their having a garage and driveway, and they never park in front of their gates.
I always put the Peugeot in the garage and park the Espace in front of my gate. It then overhangs the space on the road in front of next door - not obstructing their gate or anything, just in front of their garden wall. They have made clear they don't like this, and if both their cars are home before mine they'll make sure they're both parked so as to leave no space for the Espace, meaning I have to park it on the main road and struggle in with the children, shopping, or whatever.
This was a situation I was prepared to turn a blind eye to - the rest of the neighbours are great, so I was happy to ignore the knuckle draggers next door and put up with the odd bit of inconvenience. Last year though when I had a tax disk go astray in the post I came out in the morning to find a note on my windscreen. It purported to come from the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme and was a warning that my car had been reported to the Police and the DVLA, and would be impounded or crushed if not removed from the street in the next 24 hours. The note was printed in various colours, riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and looked like something my 10 year old would produce on the computer (his spelling's much better than that on the note).
I was quite sure it had nothing to do with our NW, but our co-ordinator lives at the other end of the road so I called round and asked. Of course the answer was no, the note was nothing to do with the NW, and he knows me well enough to ask me before taking any form of action.
I took great delight then in taking a copy of the note, amending all the spelling mistakes in red pen, and postng it back to next door (I forgot to put a stamp on too). I now make a point whenever possible of making sure the Espace is parked just far enough back to prevent him getting both his cars on the road, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the neighbours who share my opinion of him.
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simply want to be able to park it outside where they live, and not outside where someone else lives ...
(not being devil's advocate) in this scenario I would move my car outside my house as soon as I could, if only so that I could keep a better eye on it. Also to avoid invoking a neighbour's ire. Two minutes' walk does not take long, but one's car is going to be well out of sight.
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But erm why buy a house with insufficient parking space for ones cars??
Why not buy one with sufficient room to park off road
cos it' cheaper I can only presume
doh indeed
signed,
respectully,
twofarms
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But erm why buy a house with insufficient parking space for ones cars??
Perhaps "one" has lived there for some years.
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But erm why buy a house with insufficient parking space for ones cars??<<
I have no idea - I have just bought a house and the requirement that we had parking for three cars AND a garage was a must - we have two cars, plus visitors, so it made sense to buy a house that met our requirements. We actually had to move half an hour away from where we are now just to get a house with all this in budget.
If you have a house with nowhere to park, that is kinda your choice in the same way that how many cars you have is.
Parking Nazis are ever so funny though, much amusement although I have to say, Im too polite to park across anyones drive or outside their house.
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>> But erm why buy a house with insufficient parking space for ones cars??
perhaps people live in an area where housing is expensive or do not have the cashflow to buy a bigger house...in my London Borough 1 bedroom flats sell for £200K, further in town the prices get very silly...ask Lud what his is worth?
the other thing is housing styles, I wanted an older house i.e. period, so although i bought one with a garage, those sorts of houses (Edwardian) weren't known for their design with cars in mind, mine's the only one in the street with a garage, so what would everyone else do?...and a driveway that you could just fit an early Renault Clio on, with the bumper hanging over the pavement
people need to stop being so selfish. You park where you can, first come first served, that's the end of it....if i've got a load of gear to unload or the child etc in the pouring rain, i'll temporarily park (badly) with hazards on....it's very rare for anyone to mind, usually a wave to acknowledge will do it.
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the other thing is housing styles, I wanted an older house i.e. period, so although i bought one with a garage
Anyone want my Edwardian house with large garage, driveway and lots of on street parking... :-) Not in London but not cheap either.
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>Two minutes' walk does not take long...
Roughly how long, would you say, Andrew?
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There is a vast Barratt/Wimpey type estate North of Yaxley, south of Peterborough. The garages will not take cars Mondeo size or bigger, most families have 2 or more cars and the roads are fairly narrow (anything to get more houses in). The result is parking chaos and difficulty for delivery vehicles and the rubbish bins to even get to the houses. Plenty of aggro about parking there I should think!
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 09/10/2009 at 11:50
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like road thining, chicanes, bumps, a lack of parking is often intentionally designed in by the planners as an anti car measure
matters not to them that the main road to the local A & E is thinned down so much that ambulances cannot get past a bin lorry or whatever
or any common sense at all
dont let the drivers take all the blame, its largely the way we have our lives manipulated by the public sector anti car nutters
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>...the way we have our lives manipulated by the public sector anti car nutters
Did you vote in the last local council election?
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the anti car nutters stay in place through elections regardless of who wins
you will find them in planning depts, in engineering subcontractors pandering to the officials anti car fashions and so on
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That'll be a 'no' then, will it?
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Could be, but he's still right.
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.. the anti car nutters stay in place through elections regardless of who wins ... >>
Move to Essex where the local council [Tory] has decided to challenge the national Government [Labour] rules:
12 March 2009
www.essexcc.gov.uk/vip8/ecc/ECCWebsite/dis/ned.jsp...8
Essex will be the first county in the UK to break with current government guidance which has detrimental impacts on local communities.
New Parking Guidance will require new residential areas to have a higher number of car parking spaces per house, which will reduce the blight on many communities of haphazardly parked cars which often prevent access to service vehicles and present safety issues.
All local authorities in the County will have the opportunity to adopt these new proposed parking standards which deal with residential and commercial parking, garages which are too small for modern vehicles, inadequate parking at many public buildings and workplaces, leisure parks and the design and layout of parking in many other areas.
The new document, being launched for consultation tomorrow (13th March), challenges previous government attempts to reduce car ownership by limiting the amount of off street parking spaces provided within residential developments which see residents parking in the road presenting safety issues and inconvenience for other road users.
Parking Standards Design and Good Practice, September 2009 is current guidance issued by Essex County Council on behalf of the Essex Planning Officers Association (EPOA).
Edited by jbif on 09/10/2009 at 12:51
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Thanks, Jbif. The point here is that government, local or national, is not something that happens to us; we get what we vote for. The system may be imperfect but, to paraphrase Steve Earle (because the filter objects to his choice of b-verb) if you don't vote, don't bellyache.
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I agree to an extent WillDB, if given the choice at the ballot box between one candidate proposing something sensible (as above) and another, it's a no brainer.
However, the reality tends to be that the candidates generally make vague promises rather than specific pledges, especially at local council level. So you don't really know what choice you're making with that little black X until they're in power and they decide what they're actually going to do...
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WDB
In the sixties when they were putting up council high rise blocks as the great new way to house the nation lots of people like me knew it was a bad way to run the country
but those council high rise blocks were put up by local and national govt officers who had generated their own fashions in these things
and they were put up through all the major parties being elected, the official carried on regardless, and produced biased advice to endorse their choices
now we all look back and realise these tower blocks were crazy
and in years to come we will look at UK road design and traffic management in the same way
So many other coutries do it so much better
and we have no choice at the ballot box on these matters
when was the last road engineer jailed for designing a juntion which kills 6 people a year? never, because its all the drivers fault in the UK
well guess what its not just the drivers!
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Re the side issue of local democracy vis-a-vis parking provsion/planning etc. & difference it makes (or not)- it's as well to recall the old (or maybe even current!) anarchists' proverb: whoever you vote for the government gets in.
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Thanks Jbif. The point here is that government local or national is not something that happens to us; we get what we vote for. The system may be imperfect but to paraphrase Steve Earle (because the filter objects to his choice of b-verb) if you don't vote don't bellyache.
Why not? I don't know of any single-issue party at the moment - what we get is a mish-mash of vague promises, and parking comes well down the list of reasons to vote vor a person/party. When you vote, your vote is very unlikely indeed to change things like parking space allocation.
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The problem are planners
They allow offices and other commercial premises to be built in town centers without proper parking facilities for people who will be working there and visit. The parking provided by councils are often, usually overpriced as councils look to make profits from them.
Where I live there is a Sainsbury and Tesco supermarket, very near the town center that have huge car park that most of the day are half empty. Used to be able to parl on there but now they have some men running round booking everyone who overstays more then 2 hours or so
The idiots are these company heads who locate their business, offices, in locations where employees have no where to park
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The problem are planners
Planners, who we can't vote for, make plans that have political implicatiions and will in all probability be approved whatever the "party" or person we vote for thinks, if "they" don't instruct planners through their policy to turn the screw a bit tighter.The idiots are these company heads who locate their business offices in locations where employees have no where to park
There are also schemes like *this* coming, which will apply wherever the workplace is:
www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2563
Just one example of the delights in store.
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The idiots are these company heads who locate their business, offices, in locations where employees have no where to park >>
Again it is the planning regs which limit the number of parking spaces allowed for commercial properties. With homes, there is a silly formula and with businesses there is another silly formula.
I can provide links to yonks of local and national government regs which are designed to be anti-car parking and are supposed to be there to force you to use public transport. It will take years, if ever, to undo the damage done by these anti-car bureaucrats to our towns and cities. Here is just one link:
fenland-consult.limehouse.co.uk/portal/planning/cs...2
" .. residential planning applications have in recent years been determined using a rule of thumb of 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling ... "
Here is how one former Mayor of Cambridge summed it up:
" ...... the pile-'em-high approach to development has led to a dearth of houses and a surfeit of flats.
The drive by developers -backed by local councils - to stack blocks of one- and two-bedroom flats on every brownfield site available is misconceived and downright harmful to communities and to individuals.
It is true that demographic trends seem to show a growing demand for low-cost smaller dwellings - a demand probably skewed by the buy-to-let market - but the neglect of an equally strong need for good-sized family homes has pushed their prices so high that small families wanting to expand, or young singles and couples, contemplating marriage and children, simply cannot afford to move up the housing ladder to a more appropriately sized home.
Government demands that thousands of new dwellings be built to meet its "growth agenda", initially in and around the historic centre, overlooked the impact these buildings would have on traffic and transport and overstretched local services such as refuse disposal. Virtually all the new inner-city developments were for small flats, as the determination of developers met the need to accommodate government housing targets.
When, last October, the planning committee was confronted with yet another such proposal, this time for more than 400 dwellings designed for singles and couples, I protested that the city's planning policy was becoming "contraceptive". "Presumably singles and couples want to go on to have families, don't they? Where are they to go if we do not provide homes for them?" .... "
Edited by jbif on 09/10/2009 at 15:27
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BOL!
Seriously though, on a public highway, it is first come, first served, end of. Clearly, if any reasonable person saw a sign requesting space because of mobility issues etc they would oblige, but anyone hoping for a claim on roadspace just because they own the house overlooking it is optimistic.
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A whole 2 minutes ... My goodness ! - How on Earth do you manage?
I manage absolutely fine - which is why I say that it isn't a problem
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So many other coutries do it so much better
Though to be fair virtually every other European country has far more land in which to build and run their road systems...
I don't think its fair to put all the blame on the planners either, us motorists have to shoulder a great deal of the blame... we created a society which prefers to use a car rather than walk/use buses and we simply keep adding to car numbers without having the room to fit them... in addition to which we have bought larger and larger cars which makes the problem even worse. For most large cities I suspect gridlock is only a matter of time no matter how much road building is done.
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I've said it before.
I'll say it again.
Roads are for traffic.
Car parks are for cars.
Pavements are for pedestrians.
If you want a victorian house, don't expect to block the road with your car!
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If you want a victorian house don't expect to block the road with your car!
are you honestly saying that if you own a Victorian house you shouldn't park your car in the street outside?...or have I misinterpreted your post
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I think its being suggested you shouldnt expect it, since you bought the house knowing parking was variable and not part of the house package.
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Someone once wrote all over my car windscreen in lipstick that I should not park outside their house. It took ages to clean off and even then the screen was never as clear as before. I reported this to the incident to the police and it never happened again.
Edited by Sofa Spud on 10/10/2009 at 00:52
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I'll tell ya what - I'm looking at selling my present house with large garage + driveway for 3 cars (I've one car)
I fancy a 'Quintessential' Cornish cottage or maybe a Victorian gaff but ... having read this thread, the house would have to have its own parking space (at least!) I couldn't be going back to faffing about with all this palaver!
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Are you honestly saying that if you own a Victorian house you shouldn't park your car in the street outside?
I think the drift is: if you choose to live in a house with inadequate off-road parking, you must expect to join the free-for-all for space in the street. You have no more claim over the bit in front of your property than anyone else, unless a residents' scheme is in force.
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I think the drift is: if you choose to live in a house with inadequate off-road parking you must expect to join the free-for-all for space in the street. You have no more claim over the bit in front of your property than anyone else unless a residents' scheme is in force.
don't have a problem with that
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>>Youhave no more claim over the bit in front of your property than anyone else unless a residents' scheme is in force.
>>
Most residents schemes do not guarantee a parking spot, they just give permission to park in a specified area. I know of areas where many more permits are issued than spaces availiable. A legalised scam IMO.
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We have recently had a new GP surgery and clinic built near us, purposely designed to be a drop in clinic for the whole local area as well as our local surgery. It was built and funded by our local PCT to provide GP cover from 08:00-20:00 365 days a year and provide cover when other surgeries are closed hence a fair number tend to come from across town with their sick children etc and tend to come by car rather than the poor public transport. There was a long public consultation period when it was all being planned, something like 18 months, all and sundry were aware. The clinic has now been open for three months and has been popular and generally welcomed.
A couple of weeks ago single yellow lines appeared all around the clinic banning parking between the hours of 08:00-20:00...........
Joined up thinking?
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More like Joined up foul up! Where my daughter lives the local GP's surgery is co-located with the hospital and everybody has to pay to park, even to go to the GP for the flu jab or to pick up a scrip
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 13/10/2009 at 11:37
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The Council will have instigated that... have you asked your Councillor why... and, if you have, what is the answer? Also a letter to the local rag is a good idea, I'm sure that could make a front page headline after seeing some of the stuff that makes it that far in our local...
Bit of "self help" needed, methinks...
Edited by b308 on 13/10/2009 at 11:37
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Don't worry, one of my local councillors is the head of the Traffic Working Party and the portfolio holder on the Counicil Cabinet, she is also fully aware of my views, both on this occasion and many others............
On the last polling day she was standing outside our polling station but moved away as I approached.......
By the way, the answer was that the parking inconveniences the local residents, don't quite see how a blanket ban on parking between 8-20 helps the local residents, I certainly wouldn't be happy with it, (but then I live three roads away and have off-road parking), that hasn't been answered yet. Also I made the point that surely someone would have noticed the chance of this problem during the consultation, that met with a bit of a blank look.
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Escalate it to the local paper...
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I understand others have that in hand.......
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Our local GP surgery has 25 parking spaces, the one near where Im moving too has near 50 of them and that is very newly built. All free. I guess it is a postcode lottery as ever.
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Our local GP surgery has 25 parking spaces the one near where Im moving too has near 50 of them and that is very newly built. All free. I guess it is a postcode lottery as ever.
Yes, location, location. My nearby GP surgery is across the road from a church, both relatively new build and have adequate car parks, as their hours of "buisiness" do not clash, overflow in either direction is no problem. Postcode lottery? No, its called choice.
Edited by Old Navy on 13/10/2009 at 13:24
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A habit which seems to be fairly new round here is to spurn off-road parking for the surgery which may be slightly awkward, and park on a wide pavement instead, which obstructs pedestrians (particularly wheelchair and buggy users) and blocks the vision of drivers trying to get in or out of the aforementioned parking. I've only been here 3 years, but it seems to have got worse since a small housing development was built opposite, and all the workers left their vans there. Time for some more yellow lines ...
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We live in a cul de sac a mixture of houses and bungalows.The road has no footpath and the front garden facing the road.We have had problems in the past regarding parking with the opposite neighbour parking outside his house which theyare entitled to but the dustbin wagon or any other lorry had to drive over my garden to get by leaving nice tyremarks for me to tidy up.Ihave asked politely in the past to move his car which he now does to let the wagons get by.We have lived here twenty six years and it is a pleasant area.All houses and bungalows here have drives.I think a bit of give and take goes a long way but leaving ladders or any other obstacle outside your property to stop people parking is not on.
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"New Parking Guidance will require new residential areas to have a higher number of car parking spaces per house, which will reduce the blight on many communities of haphazardly parked cars which often prevent access to service vehicles and present safety issues".
Where I live there is ample room on peoples' drives for at least two cars as well as having garages. Unfortunately, you can't legislate for the way people develop their properties, unless LAs refuse planning for change of use of garages.
Many of the houses here have changed their garages to living accommodation and leave their cars on the road. One of my neighbours has extended his garage and changed it to a swimming pool. He parks one of his cars on the pavement, not just partly. His next door neighbour has copied him. We rarely see a policeman, but when the annual police car manages to drive past they take no notice.
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>>> Many of the houses here have changed their garages to living accommodation and leave theircars on the road.
When I still lived in the UK, I had a house with a driveway and an integrated garage, built in the late 1970s. When I bought a Mondeo Mk1 I was amazed to find that it was too long and too wide to fit in the garage, which by default then became an additional storage area.
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If you make the effort to have a drive / garage to house your cars you're only penalised by others parking opposite your drive making it difficult for you to get in and out.
We purposely had a double width drive some 14 feet between posts (so its quite tight with 2 cars side by side) so as to be able to park off road and still have some garden at the front of the house and all we've done is make it easier for everyone else to park.
The local councillor who lives at the bottom of the street on the main road has some how had double yellow lines in front of his house and everyone around him parks in our cul de sac.
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The simple solution to parking spaces at hospitals and doctor's surgeries - for non urgent cases, of course - is for people to pre-book a space together with the appointment. Receptionist confirm's Mr Brown's appointment at 10.30 am (parking available from 10.25 to 10.50, please write code "234 ABC" on a note in car window). Traffic wardens do the rounds, check up on abusers, threat of wheel clamp, whatever...
Not a perfect system, appointments are delayed, there may be a backlog,... but it's a start... We all have a 8 digit NHS number, come to think of it - it's on the Health Card, which should be taken to the surgery just in case someone tries to "forge" a parking space permit. (Whatever will they think of next...?)
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Apostrophe bug got into my last posting. I swear I didn't put them there!!..... Can anyone edit them out for me, please ?? First one is also in the wrong place. Drat and double drat....
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Going back to the depicted scene in the OPs post, is there any actual legality preventing a member of the public from placing cones on the highway?
I have seen people use yellow (presumably "borrowed") police cones used for the same residential parking situation described, which I would imagine is not allowed as they should be for enforcing a police controlled clearway and so forth...
But presuming you haven't "borrowed" some council orange cones (I can go to several places and legally purchase my own) then are you allowed to just place them on the highway and if so what constitutes a right and proper reason?
A cone is surely a nationally recognised "road sign" of sorts, and placing it surely dictates a warning to a hazard or related highway work, not as a parking reservation.
I know you can't "own" the piece of road outside your house, but whereas you can be sneaky in "accidentally" spacing out your cars to prevent someone else parking there and get away with it, is there anything specifically related to using traffic cones that could get one in to trouble?
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You have the right to pass and repass on the highway, the presence of cones would constitute an obstruction to this.
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Some people near me do this with 'private' cones. However, I don't see how a cone, in the gutter and touching the kerb could prevent anyone passing or repassing - not more than a full size legally parked car would!
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I?m living in Switzerland and things are very different, but not necessarily better.
You can only park in designated places, not just at the side of any road (well there are a few places where you can get away with it, but very few). So you have park places linked to your house/flat and most blocks/estates have a few visitor spaces shared between them.
If you park in someone else?s place, or regularly park in the visitor?s space when you live there, you can be ?denounced? by your neighbours to the local commune (think council). They?ll fine you anything from CHF100 up to CHF 1000 (£600). You can contest it and first time will probably get off but generally it?s a bad idea (and so it doesn?t happen much).
Most areas also have limited hours parking bays or small car parks (with the card time lock thing ? called a macaron here), so guests can park but you couldn?t park there for the weekend for example. In the cities they have resident badge areas but there are far more badges than spaces.
The upshot is you don?t buy a car until you know you have a parking place.
Public transport is very good, so you use that.
The plus is that parking disputes are very rare and you know where you stand before you buy/rent, you either have a space or not.
The minus is that if your circumstances change and you need a car (or another car in the household) then you are stuck with paying through the nose to rent a nearby parking space/garage or moving house.
It also means that parking is almost always a topic of conversation, like the weather in England.
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one of the funniest things ive seen is a fire engine physically pushing a car up a road and to the side into a wall, serves the car owner right for being stupid enough to park blocking a road down so thin that fire engines couldnt get through
im with the firemen on this one very much
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It always amuses me how some people think they "own" the piece of road outside their house. It's a public highway, is it not? The old boy next door is a bit of a "Little Englander", refuses to use his driveway and parks outside his house, even overnight, to reserve "his" precious piece of road. Not content with that, he has to park a little bit over on to my precious bit of road too. Not that I'm bothered, but when he insists on parking his motability car a fagpaper width away from my stepsons car and gets out of his car and pushes it up to the bumper, perhaps he isn't as high rate mobility disabled as he makes out. "Hello, is that the DWP?......" ;-)
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If you really think he's not disabled enough, CC, then report him.
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Couldn't bring myself to do that, b308, not really my style, even if he is a cantankerous old git. Leafing through one of those catalogues at work the other day that has everything from signs to traffic cones to hi viz vests. They had these signs that could be affixed to car windscreens which read something along the lines of "You are parked illegally. Your registration number has been recorded and any future infringement may result in the vehicle being clamped or towed away." Available with normal or permanent! adhesive. Mmmm. Well he does park facing against the flow of traffic... :-)
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Reminds me of my brother. He was working in a small struggling building company some years back which was plagued with illegally parked cars. The owner presented his with some notices much as you describe with the permanent adhesive and told him to fix one to any car he saw without a permit on the screen.
He wasn't to know that the double parked Jaguar belonged to a new client who had just signed the largest contract the company ever had.
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Thought I would bring this back to the top with my own little story from yesterday.
Arrived home to find that the areas designated for our houses to park were full. Two of these vehicles were from a house up the road, one is his works van which is always there and there is enough space for (dont have a problem with this). The other was his mate who was visiting.
Anyway, I called up his empty drive to him and asked if he could get his mate to move or if he could pull his van forward a touch. "Never knew parking was an issue" was the reply. Rather taken aback by this I replied with "Neither did I, now could you please move one of your vehicles".
I sat there for two mins and his mate comes out "Whats the problem"? "No, problem, it would be nice if you could move your car or your mate could pull his forward a bit". "Ah, then we do have a problem, cos we cant do either of them".
So, I parked my car so he couldnt get out. 30 minutes later he wants to leave, knocked on my door, I told him I would be about 10 mins as I was busy (childish I know but made me feel better!!). He had pulled out of the parking spot and parked about an inch from my rear bumper, meaning I could only move one way. Would have made much more sense for him to stay in the spot or move back about 10 feet so I could reverse in and then he could leave. Nope, this werent in his plans either.
About an hour later the police arrive as he has called them as he is totally in the right!!
Nice officer came up to me and we start a conversation like long lost friends. Well it was only 29 years since I last saw him! Told Officer that the best thing would be for matey boy to reverse, I could get in the parking spot, he could drive off. Well, he done it but wasnt happy in moving backwards to let me in.
When he did pull past me, he went and parked on the drive where I had asked him to move to earlier but couldnt possibly do that. The speed that he done all this at was like saying "I dont like doing this and resent you all!!".
Yes, I know I could've parked up the road, where my car cannot be seen from my property. Yes, I know I shouldnt have blocked him in and yes, it was totally a waste of the BiB's time caused all due to this pink fluffy dice having an attitude which cost him about 2 hours of his time.
Roll on next Sunday when he will probably return "just to park and cause a nuisance".
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 19/10/2009 at 10:50
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TBH it sounds like you'd have been better just moving it when he came to your door... you had inconvenienced him by making him come to your door so had made your point... and you would have held the higher moral ground had you moved for him (as opposed to him refusing to earlier)... we will wait for the next instalment with interest... I doubt he'll let it lie now!
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Update:
I've just returned to work after a week off, interested to see how the battle has been progressing in my absense. The step ladder has gone - perhaps stolen. One of his cones has gone, the other this morning was lying squashed in the gutter with someone parked on top of it.
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>>>I know I could've parked up the road, where my car cannot be seen from my property. Yes, I know I shouldnt have blocked him in<<<
It takes two to cause trouble friend - and you're one of them
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Arrived home to find that the areas designated for our houses
In what way are these spaces designated for your houses? Is the road private or have the council allocated some sort of resident parking scheme?
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In what way are these spaces designated for your houses? Is the road private or have >> the council allocated some sort of resident parking scheme?
Could be house numbers marked in the parking bays?
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Thought I would bring this back to the top with my own little story from yesterday.
I think that is the textbook definition of making a mountain out of a molehill. You could have easily parked round the corner, moved your car after his mate had left and had a chat with him afterwards. Instead everybody wasted lots of their time, and the police had to get involved when they could have been attending to something far more useful.
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just wasted a chunk of my life reading through all these posts. Amazing how a small number of idiots can cause so much bother.
My cul de sac of 6 houses has just enough parking on the street but there is one neighbour who has always been literally paranoid about "his" corner, to the point of violence (he is a raging alkie). I posted ages ago about him pulling a 2 year ban when the police chased him into his house, as tried to make it look that he got 3 times over the limit in 40 seconds in his kitchen. Since then he has never worked and keeps his old car fettled, sat there in the corner. he only drives it at night so he can keep his space! he has become 100% fixated on this space and like the OP I like to take advantage of the rare occasion when he's out to park there and raise his B.P.
Just wish I had a spare few 100 quid to buy a wreck and leave it there.
As for our planners, there is a new apartment complex near me part of a sports "village". All the grass verges are now mud because of stadium parking and the residents can't get their cars in half the time.
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As for our planners there is a new apartment complex near me part of a sports "village". All the grass verges are now mud because of stadium parking and the residents can't get their cars in half the time.
So is the received wisdom then that all new buildings need to be surrounded by acres of tarmac to accomodate car parking by all and sundry?
Sounds like some poorly executed landscaping near said complex that gives access to the grass verges. A bit more design thought and parking would be where it should be and the rest would be unparkable on - people would have to be less tight and pay for the parking at the stadium or choose an alternative way of getting there.
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So is the perceived wisdom then that all new buildings need to be surrounded by acres of tarmac to accomodate car parking by all and sundry?
Yes.
A great chunk of the British public drive cars to their chosen destination and have no wish to join the lawless, unpleasant and sometimes dangerous minority that can and often do join you on public transport....over and above the convenience angle.
If a large part of your customer base is going to turn up in a car, why on earth wouldn't you provide parking for them.
It doesn't have to be vast swathes of tarmac, what's wrong with tastefully built multi storey car parks or even underground ones?...and whilst your at it, secure, with patrolling guards, clean, well lit etc, etc.....like they do in other countries.
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clean well lit etc etc.....like they do in other countries.
But they dont have anti car governments.
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A great chunk of the British public drive cars to their chosen destination and have no wish to join the lawless unpleasant and sometimes dangerous minority that can and often do join you on public transport....over and above the convenience angle. If a large part of your customer base is going to turn up in a car why on earth wouldn't you provide parking for them. It doesn't have to be vast swathes of tarmac what's wrong with tastefully built multi storey car parks or even underground ones?...and whilst your at it secure with patrolling guards clean well lit etc etc.....like they do in other countries.
and this would be paid for by whom? I've in my time been in a few discussions with developers who balk completely at the cost of underground parking or multistorey parking...it's not cheap and can make alot of residential development (in developer's eyes) unprofitable. plenty of sports stadia eg Millenium stadium and wembley etc function with limited parking opportunities and people plan their way there either by parking over a more disparate area or catching public transport for a leg of the journey.
We are a long way from some European countries that manage to integrate useful public transport into new development schemes eg extending tram lines and having transport nodes where big things are placed eg sports stadia, big offices etc etc - and you see a large range of population using it - including families and people with jobs but it can be done - it's all about providing other movement choices than the car (and not everyone has one or should be forced to use one). One of the biggest challenges to reconcile for the poor planners (not that there's much sympathy on this forum for what they are tasked to achieve) is how we design at greater density with less land take ( to preserve the green belt/green fields that are dear to middle england) and yet accomodate the desire of people to accomodate the car...you can't really have full provision for cars and not end up with low density sprawl which by then effectively mandates that the car is the only means to get about as public transport efficiency drops off significantly as density falls.
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Well blimey.
I think if I were that resident with the cones and stepladder I should be grateful that the Council hadn't yet arrived with their money-making/daylight robbery "Resident's Only" permit scheme.
It just shows how lazy people are.
I'm moving to a house without parking (I have parking at my current house) and I fully expect NOT to be able to park in the same spot. If it really were that important to me, I wouldn't be moving.
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ukbeefy,
The customer in this country is usually a second rate citizen (with a few fine exceptions). In many other countries they are not. You have virtually answered your own question.
Trams, buses, trains....DIRECT....from an easy to reach car park...PLUS...they have to be clean, safe & reliable. Then maybe I might use one.
What's wrong with bus conductors and train guards?...there's nearly 3 million unemployed, i'd rather they got paid (more) for that, than sat at home doing nothing.
If someone wants my custom, then they'll need to provide me with a car park, at least until the above is achieved....and let's face it i'm not unique am I...look at the success of online reatilers and places like Blue Water etc.
How many times have you been to a retailer, with a car park and found the car park full of the staff's transport....that tells me there's complete contempt for the customer...basically a 'sort yourself out' attitude.
The British consumer is often a doormat, it's about time they rose up and demanded more.
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Local nitwit (retired, good public service pension, wife same, parking space in his drive for 4 cars plus garage) objected to cars parked in "his" road (no restrictions), posted letters on their windscreens asking owners to desist. One owner complained to Police. Police came round and had a word with nitwit. No more letters but continuing efforts left us all with permit bays. Nitwit then moved to another part of town, no doubt to contuinue the good work.
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Well provision of parking often comes at a cost either to provide said multi storey carpark plus staff to patrol it and maintain it (even surface car parks cost to build and maintain) and may be only used for a small amount of the week if it is a stadium.
The developer might also be instead looking at building on more of the land to create as it sounds in this development more of a mixed use approach to share the same parking resource. That certainly is more efficient in terms of utilising the space. That is how the parking near the London arena works - it's integrated into a mixed use scheme where it is used primarily by residents and business users in nearby offices but also available to event goers in the evening when the business users will have gone home.
Any new development now has to produce a travel plan and pass highways approval to minimise its impact on the surrounding road network. By encouraging other forms of travel and by encouraging people to park further away (perhaps in existing parking unused at that time but with a shuttle bus or walk in between) you get a much reduced "pulse" of traffic entering the road network at one point at the end of the event. Sports events are notorious in transport circles for causing massive road problems as the volume of traffic spikes significantly. attempting to provide for everyone to drive right to the venue and leave efficiently is almost impossible without buldozing half the surrounding neighbourhood to build huge junctions that get used 2 times a week.
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By encouraging other forms of travel and by encouraging people to park further >>away (perhaps in existing parking unused at that time but with a shuttle bus or walk >>in between)
ah...you've now hit it on the head. There are plenty of people out there in positions of influence, who would like to encourage me to use 'alternative forms of transport'
... it's not going to happen.
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well obviously it's not going to work to "encourage" you to switch but it may work on others who may be prepared not to drive or get dropped off at a tube or train station if it avoided a high parking charge etc. Some venues literally have no public parking eg Earls Court or Olympia but then I presume you'd be looking to park nearby at whatever cost and walk or would you avoid going to such places at all regardless of the attraction itself?
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but then I presume you'd be looking to park nearby at whatever cost and walk or would >>you avoid going to such places at all regardless of the attraction itself?
correct to both, depending on the hassle factor.
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>>>I'm moving to a house without parking (I have parking at my current house) and I fully expect NOT to be able to park in the same spot. If it really were that important to me, I wouldn't be moving.
I hope this works out okay for you, but having been in this situation before I somehow predict that the parking lottery will become an annoyance. Obviously, this depends on the length of the street, the demographics of the residents, proximity of local 'attractions' such as shops etc. When you arrive home and there is nowhere to park within 100 metres of your house and you have to park in another road, that's when you will wish you had a driveway! Especially with kids/shopping. And then you need to factor in the vandalism, smash and grab merchants etc.
Doesn't excuse pettiness, though.
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well in the former you would have used an alternative mode of transport for some of the journey namely walking...
We could actually make alot more journeys by foot - often people are hindered by the walking route being very long winded or without safe crossing points. That is what is driving the change in town centre road design to make walking safer and more direct to encourage more walking and making it more pleasant.
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ah...you've now hit it on the head. There are plenty of people out there in positions of influence who would like to encourage me to use 'alternative forms of transport' ... it's not going to happen.
>>
Dont worry there are people with the same opinion.
edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Travellers-g...p
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You bothe make good points Ukbeefy and Westpig i could not do without my car the convience privacy etc .But we need public transport there are plenty of people who cant afford a car and plenty who own one and still cant afford it .We should all walk more cycle use buses trams but its not going to happen.Public transport got to inprove we need tram systems linked to buses ,safer towns at night time to travel by public transport.A more tolerant society i have a dream.:)
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This debate seems very polarised. it's not pro car/anti car it's just about people having some choice of how to get about and configuring our towns and neighbourhoods so there is that effective choice eg new housing developments which aren't one large cul de sac onto a distributor road - instead having networks of streets with connections to other neighbourhoods - creating the means to cycle and walk if you want to to shops, leisure facilities/green spaces.
When you look at continental places in Sweden, Germany and Holland you still see plenty of cars about but they make many more short journeys by bike, walking and using public transport. We used to have the same level of cycling as Denmark in the 1960s - ours has dropped precipitously whereas the Danes and the Dutch have systematically invested in a highway approach that makes provision for walking cycling public transport and the car in that order. seeing one of their developments even dating from the 1970s you are struck at how non car dominated their town centres and domestic neighbourhoods are. it is that ethos that is permeating UK street design approaches now in the last 5 years.
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Having just come back from Holland I would make a comment that their roads are much more suited to "conversion" to cycle/pedestrian use than ours... The main problem we have in towns and cities is that the roads are far too narrow, and that cannot be blamed on planners, it goes back hundreds of years! The only realistic way we could do more is by making many roads one way for motor vehicles...
And why does everyone want trams? I can't understand why, if we are looking at investment in electric public transport we don't re-introduce trolley buses, all the advantages of a tram, but costs less (no track), less unheaval when building the system and best of all they can actually get round badly parked cars or road works...
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>it's not pro car/anti car it's just about people having some choice of how to get about..
The problem is that Joe Public doesn't get any real choice. They are presented with a list of the only options that would be acceptable to the anonymous, unelected bureaucrat who drew up the list. Bureaucrats who often think that their 'experience' in Urban Planning or Traffic Management automatically renders conflicting opinions worthless.
>configuring our towns and neighbourhoods so there is that effective choice eg new housing
>developments which aren't one large cul de sac onto a distributor road - instead having
>networks of streets with connections to other neighbourhoods - creating the means to cycle
>and walk if you want to to shops, leisure facilities/green spaces.
See what I mean?
I don't want to live anywhere like that. Many of them become hotspots for petty crime and burglary because the perps know that they can just disappear in any direction.
Why is it so difficult to ask people what they want instead of telling them what they can have?
>a highway approach that makes provision for walking cycling public transport and the car in that order.
It's not pro car/anti car, it's all about giving people a choice - but the car comes last? That makes sense.
Kevin...
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Why is it so difficult to ask people what they want instead of telling them what they can have?
Probably because everyone has a different opinion!
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>Probably because everyone has a different opinion!
That's a valid excuse to ignore them?
Kevin...
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>Probably because everyone has a different opinion! That's a valid excuse to ignore them? Kevin...
I honestly don't know if people's opinions are ignored or not. But if you ask 200 people what kind of area they'd like to live in, you'd probably get 200 different answers. The difficult thing must be how to build a compromise that at least some people are happy with. You certainly can't please all of the people all of the time.
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> But if you ask 200 people what kind of area they'd like to live in, you'd probably get 200 different answers.
Slight exageration there harib.
>The difficult thing must be how to build a compromise that at least some people are happy
>with. You certainly can't please all of the people all of the time.
How do you know what people want until you ask them? You don't "build a compromise" by dictat.
Kevin...
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Slight exageration there harib.
I did say probably ;-)
How do you know what people want until you ask them? You don't "build a compromise" by dictat.
I agree that some section of the general population should be asked what they would like. My point is that I'm not sure you'd get a definitive answer as to what the final outcome should be.
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>I agree that some section of the general population should be asked what they would like.
Which section would that be?
Kevin...
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What I was meaning in terms of choice is it gives you the choice for things like - being able to walk out of your development if you so want to or to walk to a park or the shops at least for a pint of milk...allow your kids to walk to school or get about without having to be driven...allow older people to move about who may not have access to the car. not everyone can drive or wants to. Planning only for the car does make layouts anti walking and anti cycling and anti public transport. planning for all of them is a compromise - it is not anti car in terms of banning the car but is balancing the car user alongside other movement options.
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>I agree that some section of the general population should be asked what they would like. Which section would that be? Kevin...
The section that live within the catchment area that is going to be changed - I.e. - a council ward.
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>configuring our towns and neighbourhoods so there is that effective choice eg new housing >developments which aren't one large cul de sac onto a distributor road - instead having >networks of streets with connections to other neighbourhoods - creating the means to cycle >and walk if you want to to shops leisure facilities/green spaces. See what I mean? I don't want to live anywhere like that.
I wouldn't mind living there Kevin... pushing a wheelchair around on pavements and roads that are built/modified for cars and not pedestrians is a real pain... as for the low lifes, they live everywhere and in the car-first areas are prbably driving around in stolen/duff cars... decent beat bobbies can help prevent any issues, if used...
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ukbeefy
Milton Keynes is designed as you wish
From the beginning with cycle lanes, and disabled access paths, and so on
In my experience the place is just a criminal nirvana, the cycle paths become rat runs for stolen cars to escape down, the disabled access areas become shaded areas for muggers to wait, and so on
Towns and cities grew up the way they did for good reason, and it gives them heart
Milton Keynes is a soul less and crime ridden hell hole, I dont care how many cycle lanes it has, its not the way to go
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As soon as you design areas that cars can't go......Police cars can't get there....so they don't get 'generally patrolled'....because there aren't enough cops nowadays to post a load walking, (like they did in the old days)....
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I have seen police cars with cycle racks (and cycles) on the back, I assume for transporting cycle cops to and from their beats. Far too clever for it to have been in the UK.
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Plenty of cycle cops in the centre of Brum... perhaps its more to do with allocation of resources... or who shouts the loudest?
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Plenty of cycle cops in the centre of Brum... perhaps its more to do with allocation of resources... or who shouts the loudest?
they will be the Safer Neighbourhood Teams, the ones allocated, with the PCSOs, to address local people's concerns, decided at local meetings. Some of those concerns can, in the big scheme of things, be quite minor e.g. cycling on pavements, dog fouling, graffiti, etc
they will not be the teams responding to 999 calls and similar.......and neither will they be there 24/7
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not so sure Westpig
West Mids seems to have a lot more pedal cycle cops than anywhere else, theres certainly a lot in the centre of Coventry
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IIRC, there are plenty of cops, just they spend more time in the "office" than they used to. Some forces are adressing the issues, but if we want disorder to be halted, there needs to be more Mk1 eyeball applied.
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ukbeefy Milton Keynes is a soul less and crime ridden hell hole I dont care how many cycle lanes it has its not the way to go
SQ
I agree and it is not what I am advocating at all. Milton Keynes is designed on a car based model - it is the epitome of Buchanan's Traffic in Towns (1960) approach ie fast distributor roads, large effectively cul de sac layouts with rear paths(terrible for crime - the leaky cul de sac) very low density, separation of traffic, cycles and pedestrians. This is exactly opposite of current street design thinking. It is now about trying to undo some of that ill thought establishing more of the street layouts of victorian and edwardian bits of town. streets that walkable, accessible by car and delivery truck, with on street parking, with logical layouts (ie not the ever wandering cul de sac) which work both at the local level and also at the larger neighbourhood (ie you could work out how to walk across the neighbourhood.)
an interesting bit of research I saw showed that Milton Keyne's separate pedway for cycles network has a much higher accident rate than other towns. Creating separate routes for pedestrians, cycles and cars is not current wisdom. a normal street with pavements works alot better.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 29/10/2009 at 20:38
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>I wouldn't mind living there Kevin...
If you are happier in that type of environment then that's absolutely fine with me.
My complaint is about planning officials who think that everyone else should be happy with it too.
Kevin...
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My complaint is about planning officials who think that everyone else should be >>happy with it too.
and couldn't give two hoots if you are unhappy with it....because 'they know best'
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And therefore should do what Kevin wants to do and to hell with anyone else who disagrees with his view... very democratic chaps! ;-)
Quite honestly I think that this country is far too "car-centric" and its about time things change so that others such as pedestrians and cyclists can get a decent look-in... and that comes from someone who likes cars and driving...
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Heh heh.....Thick end of 6000 viewings of a thread on parking wars !
How charmingly " Middle English" !
;-)
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Heh heh.....Thick end of 6000 viewings of a thread on parking wars !
Given that there are over 4000 viewings on a thread about Octavia spare tyres, I don't think that's saying much :-)
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>And therefore should do what Kevin wants to do and to hell with anyone else who disagrees with his view...
Eh? What gives you that impression?
..very democratic chaps! ;-)
Wanting to be consulted by public officials who are making decisions that will affect my local neighbourhood is undemocratic? Weird.
Kevin...
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Try the phrase "they can't please everyone all of the time" and apply it to this thread, Kevin... The impression I got from your previous post is that they should do what you want and ignore others' views, I don't agree with what you want, why should my view not count for as much as yours...
You and your fellow voters elected them, part of their job is to approve/not approve those sorts of decisions to save you having to vote on every single change to the local community, certain decisions they will hold public meetings, if you don't like what they are doing then go to those meetings or stand against them or vote against them...
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>Try the phrase "they can't please everyone all of the time" and apply it to this thread,
Bull. Accompanied by a pained expression and a shrug of the shoulders, that's the fallback excuse for every petty official who thinks he knows better than the people who have to live with his decisions. They then roll out the other excuse that dissenters are in a minority and any consultation will be a waste of money and cause unnecessary delay. Failing that they conduct a consultation and ignore the results anyway, witness the fiasco of HR's extra runway.
>The impression I got from your previous post is that they should do what you want and
>ignore others' views,
Quote: "If you are happier in that type of environment then that's absolutely fine with me."
Which part of "absolutely fine with me" are you having difficulty with?
>I don't agree with what you want, why should my view not count for as much as yours...
No-one in this thread, myself especially, has suggested that your views shouldn't count. Quite the reverse in fact - I have been arguing for more consultation.
>You and your fellow voters elected them.. then go to those meetings or stand against them..
As you acknowledged earlier in this thread when you advised cockle to "Escalate it to the local paper..." - it doesn't work like that.
Kevin...
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Kevin, despite your protestations to the contrary it is not "bull" except in your eyes, that phrase is the one used by people who want there own way and are not prepared to compromise, which is where I see you in this discussion...
Re "absolutely fine with me" - add your other comment that you want it changed to what you want anyhow...
"have been arguing for more consultation" and that is the crux... we have enough consultaion already, you want even more... perhaps until you get the result you want, I suspect! No I don't want more consultation, we have enough as it is, it currently takes far too long to get things agreed in this country as it is, without adding even more time to the process...
The only people who want more consultaion are the ones who don't agree with the proposal in the first place...
As for the local paper scenario, it does work like that, and whilst notsuccessful every time it is in many cases...
Edited by b308 on 30/10/2009 at 08:50
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b308, where you see me in this discussion is neither here nor there. Basing your argument on what you think I meant doesn't alter what I actually wrote.
If you want a sensible discussion of why people should be offered a choice in urban/residential development then please don't misrepresent the content of my posts.
>Re "absolutely fine with me" - add your other comment that you want it changed to what you want anyhow...
Are we reading the same thread? Where did you see that?
>and that is the crux... we have enough consultaion already,
As I explained in my first post, I want a meaningful consultation process not something that merely pays lip service. Did you read this "The problem is that Joe Public doesn't get any real choice"?
>you want even more... perhaps until you get the result you want, I suspect!
Again, what you "suspect" and what I have written are not the same.
>No I don't want more consultation, we have enough as it is, it currently takes far too long
>to get things agreed in this country as it is, without adding even more time to the
>process...
See the second excuse I mentioned in my previous post.
>As for the local paper scenario, it does work like that,
The part I referred to that doesn't work was your suggestion to attend council meetings, not the bit about raising awareness in a local rag.
There a pattern evolving here. Is it my accent that's causing a problem or is your continuous misunderstanding deliberate?
Kevin...
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There a pattern evolving here. Is it my accent that's causing a problem or is your continuous misunderstanding deliberate?
No misunderstanding Kevin, we just don't agree on what we want from places to live...
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>No misunderstanding Kevin, we just don't agree on what we want from places to live...
Then why did you waste your time attacking statements that you knew I hadn't made?
Kevin...
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Then why did you waste your time attacking statements that you knew I hadn't made?
My interpretation of what you have said in earlier posts is that you did.
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>My interpretation of what you have said in earlier posts is that you did.
Any examples?
I've already explained that your "interpretation" of what I wrote does not alter the actual content of my posts. In spite of that, you still fail to identify where I have written what you claim. Either justify your "interpretation" with direct quotes from my posts or give it a rest.
Kevin...
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retgwle.Milton Keynes is a hell hole soullesand crime ridden) Whats this got to do with cycle paths ?Pedestrian ways ?Idont follow Westpig says police cant get their with cars well let them walk or cycle motorbike anything to get to a crime scene.What we are saying that we cant live in a modern city and the thug rules the rule strange?Planners can only go so fare we as people have to decide what we want that means keeping a check on our neighbours and be a community strange world we live in everbody is making excuses and the criminal rules .Sorry i had to get this of my chest.:)
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You got Milton Keynes
We got Craigavon, its smaller
However
A known local paramilitary killer is reckoned to have murdered 12 or 15 ,using a bicycle for untracable transport.
Hows that for Community spirit
M
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>>>We got Craigavon<<<
Interesting - Something else I didn't know! ~ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigavon
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Made me smile reading that history... they got it wrong in the 60s re building techniques... then knocked a lot of it down... now its being rebuilt again... will be interesting to see if version 2 is still ok 20 years hence...
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in my 'mobile tuning days' I used to go to many notorious council estates in South & East London such as the Aylesbury Est. North Peckaham Est. Heygate Est. (where I lived) - no life, is it! when ya think Lord Falmouth owns 25,910 acres - one could get a few window boxes on that spread me thinks!!
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There are only two bearable places to live: the middle of town and the back of beyond. Both have their emotional and financial costs.
The very thought of some idiot laying claim to some bit of public road (except with a valid medical bit of paper) fills me with despair. No one would dare try it round here.
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Same here, although I am very lucky that 3/4 of my block respect each others parking space. I live in a terraced house and 70% of the time me or my dad get to park outside it.
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>>>There are only two bearable places to live: the middle of town and the back of beyond. Both have their emotional and financial costs.<<<
Wise words Effendi :)
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