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House and home

Parking nightmare.

(84 Posts)
driverann Sun 01-Apr-18 10:03:27

Friends of ours have moved out of their house into a caravan on a holiday park where they can live for 11 and half months of the year, the main reason they give is the total lack of parking spaces in their road at weekends and any evening after 6 pm. In their caravan that has all mod cons they also have the luxury of two parking spaces. I am envious of them. Is parking a nightmare where you live.

TrendyNannie6 Thu 27-Feb-20 19:28:43

No we don’t have problem with parking, we have a adequate drive,and rest of the houses down out road also have. Nobody parks on the road, outside their houses, most of the families on our road have AC that have left home so mostly 2 cars on each of the drives

SalsaQueen Wed 26-Feb-20 14:49:50

We've got 2 cars - one on the drive, one on the street (outside our home), and almost every house has got at least one car. The houses were built in 1930, so no garages and no space to build any.

Franbern Wed 26-Feb-20 13:49:22

There re 25 flats in the block in which I now live. 23 of them have garages on he ground floor. There is also a residents parking area at the rear for visitors, etc with about ten parking spaces.
I looked at a flat here about four years ago, one without a garage, asked the Management Company if one of the parking places could be allocated to that flat - this was refused, so I did not purchase that flat.
Parking is expensive on roadway here, although I do have a blue badge. When I looked at flats, not only did I want one with a garage, but also one with good visitors parking.
At my last house, in a small cul-de-sac, the very first thing I had done when I moved there, was to organise off-street parking in front of that house. It was some of the best money I spent -and so often, I thanked myself for having done that. That car, parked on my forecourt, became an extension of my living space.
My daughter's house in London is also in a cul-de-sac, close to a school. When her little girl started school, she needed to return from work most days to collect her. Parking was so bad at those times, that the only way of dealing with it was to pay for her to have a dropped kerb and off-street parking on her forecourt to prevent people parking in front of her house.
I am baffled at the number of new properties (houses and flats) being passed by Planning to be built without any parking spaces for them. whereas, I understand the need to cut down on our car usage, this is not the way to do that. Need to have an excellent and cheap public transport in place firstly.

Yehbutnobut Wed 26-Feb-20 11:52:08

We have restricted parking here - residents passes and those without limited to two hours. The traffic wardens are red hot. I often watch as families park here, read the signs and shrug. When they arrive back 3-4 hours later they have a ticket.

I even tried to warn one group but ...

Aepgirl Wed 26-Feb-20 11:27:09

I’ve just parked in a supermarket car park to do my mid-week shop. When I came back to my small car, parked either side were huge 4-wheel drives, and parked on the other side behind me was yet another. They were all too long for the parking spaces which made it so difficult for me to get out of my space. I had to go straight back to avoid hitting the cars either side, but was then in danger of hitting the one behind in the opposite line. It resulted in me shuffling back and forth on full lock to ‘escape’
Isn’t it about time that supermarkets had spaces for small cars only?

bluetrigger1 Sun 21-Jul-19 14:42:46

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Chewbacca Wed 04-Apr-18 18:55:13

Our village has mainly small, stone built, mill cottages that never had parking spaces or garages and so parking on the road is the only option. But, like in so many other areas, building sites have sprung up all around the village. 95% of the newbuilds are large family houses with 3/4/5 bedrooms; 1 garage and no pavements leading to any of the properties. Because the houses are so large,they often have 2 or more cars. And 1 garage. This has led to cars being parked anywhere they can fit, often blocking access for emergency vehicles and refuse lorries. It can take up to 20 minutes to drive the length of our village because of the huge amount of cars on the road, often double parked, and also because it becomes deadlocked when a bus or lorry is trying to squeeze through and can't pass. Don't know what the answer is but I wish someone did.

lemongrove Wed 04-Apr-18 17:53:30

Same here Goldengirl older houses had much smaller garages, so we don’t use ours at all, but DH finds it a useful space to store all the logs for the fire, all his useful bits and bobs ( junk )grin and what seems to be a whole shedload of assorted wood from small bits to eight feet long planks.

Maggiemaybe Wed 04-Apr-18 15:25:01

We have four new townhouses at the top of our street, goldengirl, all built within the last ten years with integral garages that are too small for any size of car. Consequently they’re all used for storage and the cars are parked on the street. confused

Norah Wed 04-Apr-18 15:24:02

We have a lovely big garage for the cars and a nice long drive. When the drive is blocked by rude cars I get so angry, a nightmare I do not need.

auntbett Wed 04-Apr-18 14:01:21

It didn't used to be a problem. I have my own drive but now cannot always actually turn into it as the road is very narrow and new neighbours directly opposite park 2 or 3 large cars half on the road, half on the pavement, so that I cannot do a right turn onto my drive. No response to pointing this out to them!

goldengirl Wed 04-Apr-18 12:31:53

Our garage was built in the 'olden' days when cars were smaller! I only have what is considered a small car now and I could drive it into the garage but wouldn't be able to get out of the car!!!! And needless to say it's become a junk - sorry, storage - area!!!!

gillybob Wed 04-Apr-18 10:46:30

How many people have a garage but never use it?

I would love to have a garage GabriellaG . It’s one of the few things I miss from my last house . I live in a terraced house now, sadly no garages or drives .

Granny23 Wed 04-Apr-18 10:33:42

We live on a busy main road, which has a bus stop and double yellows all along the opposite side. We have a drive which can take 3 cars although we only have one, unless we have visitors.

Our problem is the getting out and in, because across the road neighbours, two of whom have high works vehicles, park on our side, not over, but tight to the edges of our drive. Some people also park opposite the bus stop causing a bottleneck every time a bus stops. The situation is complicated by having a street light, tight against the fence/hedge at one side of our drive.

DH was a dab hand at manoeuvring out onto the road, with me standing across the road to signal when there was a gap in the traffic, but now he has had to give up his licence, it is down to me to try to judge if the road is clear in both directions, to swing out past the parked vans on a wing and a prayer. If we need to be out early in the morning, I leave the car parked across the driveway overnight and sometimes have to leave it there coming home and go out late at night, when the traffic is less to get it back in. We have already lost two wing mirrors.

twiglet77 Tue 03-Apr-18 16:03:39

I live in a pretty crummy farm cottage but it has a huge amount of off road parking and it would be an absolute priority for any house I ever considered moving to.

winterwhite Tue 03-Apr-18 12:19:54

Seems as though civil enforcement must vary. We don’t have it here so a policing issue and community police officers do sometimes respond. They advise against notes on windscreens! Obviously a tedious and time-consuming job for anyone, much better to have better driver education.

goldengirl Tue 03-Apr-18 11:29:38

Building homes without sufficient parking is madness!
Parking restrictions are being introduced in our area but this means that drivers just find somewhere else! Railway station car parks and town car parks can be very expensive and thus force drivers to use the local roads.

There are retirement apartments in the throes of construction not far away and when I queried the parking at the open day the company seemed oblivious that even older people drive and own cars!!!

I don't mind drivers parking outside my house as I'm lucky enough to have a drive. However should they park across my entrance I would have no hesitation on writing a little billet doux and stuffing it under their wiper!

Auntieflo Tue 03-Apr-18 08:10:39

The councils have laws unto themselves. It appears that if you drive across a pavement to access your property, you may be charged with damaging the utilities that lie beneath the surface, so they will get you to pay for a dropped kerb. But, if someone parks half on and half off the kerbside, no one cares a hoot.

kittylester Tue 03-Apr-18 08:00:11

I carry polite but pointed notes in my car and bag and put them under the windscreen wipers of the offending cars.

I take photos of cars that block the high street, especially the 20 year old who parks his boyracer car actually on the pelican crossing 'because I'm only nipping in for fags'. I send the photos to the council but he is still doing it so I imagine they have done nothing. I could ring his mum but I doubt it would help.

Maggiemaybe Mon 02-Apr-18 23:18:11

Oh, that it were so simple, winterwhite. Local authorities have been given the job of policing parking issues, and they can only charge with obstruction in specific circumstances. I have reported the issue to the council, as I have already said, and sent photos of the offending cars (as have others that I know of). Apparently they would act if the car parked at the bus stop was on the road, but not as it's on the pavement. confused Here's one online report of many about the problem. I've chosen this because it shows a full row of about a dozen cars all parked along a pavement in Middlesbrough.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/drivers-could-soon-fined-parking-10129882

lemongrove Mon 02-Apr-18 22:29:02

No parking problems for us, it’s very quiet here and lots of parking space available, more than is needed.
One of the things we look for when buying a house.I also wanted a flat driveway this time, as our last one was steep.
I sometimes wonder how people manage if they come home to find no place to park the car!

winterwhite Mon 02-Apr-18 21:36:34

Parking on pavement, even if only two wheels, is an offence if it causes pedestrians to walk in the road. Worth taking a photo of habitual offenders and emailing to the relevant enforcement authority. Wheelchairs, shaky walkers, buggy pushers, adults with small children should not have to step into the road past parked vehicles.

Maggiemaybe Mon 02-Apr-18 20:02:30

We have a very wide pavement just round the corner, and people park cars there - with all four tyres firmly on the pavement. Sometimes kindly leaving space at one side or the other, sometimes bang in the middle so a pram or wheelchair couldn't get past. The day I helped a fellow nan by holding her pushchair up roadside while she wheeled the other two wheels on the tiny scrap of free pavement was the day I rang our Council to complain. Not illegal, they said, except in London. It is illegal to drive on the pavement, but how would we catch them? I gave them the precise times of day when this particular car was driven on and off the pavement. That was two years ago, and it's still parked there every day. With three others ahead of it now, including the one that's parked at the bus stop.

granma47 Mon 02-Apr-18 19:21:02

The new housing estate in my area has 3/4/5 bedrooms. I would, therefore, expect there should be parking for at least 3 cars. Not so! As soon as people moved in cars were being parked half on, half off the new pavements as the driveways have room for one car in front of a garage. So much for needed new housing!