[Closed] Residents who think they own the road they live on,parking issues

I can see both sides, on one hand I have no time whatsoever for people who whinge about "their" space outside their home, but I live next door to a three car family who never, ever use their own driveway and force me to park around the corner. It's a PITA, which usually resolves itself when they go out and I leave my car outside their house for days on end.

why does it have to be a question of money?

TJ I am not sure exactly what point you are making about subsidised car usage - can you elaborate with enough detail for me to [s]explain why you are wrong [/s] reply?

Genuine Q [google drew a blank] the bit above is just mickey taking

I thought the same about some of the people saying 'why would you buy a house without a drive' has the whiff of 'how dreadfully common, you wouldn't catch me in one of those dreadful terraced houses ugghh'
some people can't afford a house with a drive. I used to live on a terraced street for years but luckily enough my wife & I moved to one with a drive but terraced houses make a lot of sense for single peeps.

dmorts - Member

This doesn't necessarily help...

Do pray tell how anything within this thread is 'helping'.

:rolleyes:

We're having some building work done at the moment, which means that the space on our drive is filled with a skip and builders van most of the time, and the garage is full of materials. So both cars are parked, unobtrusively, in the close (a private road which we co-own). Still one of the nieghbours couldn't help but come round "for a quick word"... and left shortly thereafter with a flea in his ear. Some people just can't help themselves!

And at our last place we'd get tickets from a warden for parking across our own drive. Same bloke, who did it repeatedly, every one got overturned and I made sure he knew this. I think that speaks volumes about the sort of folk who get involved in parking & related disputes.

I thought the same about some of the people saying 'why would you buy a house without a drive' has the whiff of 'how dreadfully common, you wouldn't catch me in one of those dreadful terraced houses ugghh'

to me it read as 'why would a typical STW poster with their shiny expensive lease car with a stanta-cruz on the roof buy a terrace house without a drive' 😆

I used to live on a terraced street for years but luckily enough my wife & I moved to one with a drive but terraced houses make a lot of sense for single peeps.

I find there's barely enough room in a two-up, two-down terrace to accommodate both myself and my prejudices. I have no idea how couples manage with only two bedrooms...

Still one of the nieghbours couldn't help but come round "for a quick word"... and left shortly thereafter with a flea in his ear.

I was that neighbour not so long ago. That said this was 18 months into what should have been a 6 month build and I had quite simply had enough.

We're still not on great terms.

I'm not surprised. It's none of your business, so butt out.

I'm not surprised. It's none of your business, so butt out.

Restricting my access to my drive and using my land to store building materials for a year longer than agreed? Nope, I'm going with that being my business.

why would a typical STW poster with their shiny expensive lease car with a stanta-cruz on the roof buy a terrace house without a drive

Junkyard
The true costs of car owning is more than drivers pay
One example is on street parking. A minority of car owners use a valuable resource owned by all. Value of this land varies. What's building land worth round your way?
Then there's the cost to theNHS of all the illness from pollution and,the cost's of traffic law enforcement etc etc

All these costs are borne by the taxpayers

Even the cost of roads is more than motoring taxes

So as.car droving costs less to the car owners than the cost's to the taxpayer the difference is a subsidy

mike_p - Member

I'm not surprised. It's none of your business, so butt out.

has the whiff of 'how dreadfully common, you wouldn't catch me in one of those dreadful terraced houses ugghh'
some people can't afford a house with a drive. I used to live on a terraced street for years but luckily enough my wife & I moved to one with a drive but terraced houses make a lot of sense for single peeps.

Hmmm... We live in a terraced house (me, wife and two kids). We get by. Somehow. 😕

(Oh and we have an off-street parking space. Also we could have a house with a drive in the same village for a lot less!)

Our street has on street parking for 6 cars, it's tiny, we live in the countryside. We all have private parking for at least one car, albeit some of them are tiny garages. But we know we have a tiny garage, so we have a tiny car. Makes sense doesn't it?

We have two cars so we do leave one on the space available, 85m from the house. Big deal, we have to walk. And I don't begrudge other people parking there- I don't own the street. I'd prefer it if they parked properly so we can still get 6 cars in, but provided they do it's not my problem. I already have to walk 85m, if I have to park a bit further away, who cares? The walk will only do me good.

One example is on street parking. A minority of car owners use a valuable resource owned by all. Value of this land varies. What's building land worth round your way?

Then there's the cost to theNHS of all the illness from pollution

and,the cost's of traffic law enforcement etc etc

I would be surprised if the tax take on cars was not greater than the expenditure on infrastructure tbh

One example is on street parking. A minority of car owners use a valuable resource owned by all. Value of this land varies. What's building land worth round your way?

😕

So if there were no cars parked on the road, we could build on that space instead?

TJ's dream utopia

[img] [/img]

Be surprised then junkyard!
As for the land it belongs to all but I can't use it cos there's cars parked on it so only a few get the benefit of something owmed by all

My experiences...

The last place I live had limited off street parking - I had to park on street - everyone who lived in the surrounding house accepted that it was rare you could park in front of your house & just got on with it.

Where I live now the space outside my house is rarely occupied - I have a drive & garage (these were things I made sure I had when buying the house)

Where my parents live people are pretty possessive of the space outside their houses, however they rarely actually use the spaces (most have reasonable sized drives) - this only really causes issues when we all show up for a family occasion (5 or so cars is the norm when this happens)

I regularly travel to Westcott (near Dorking) to ride in the Surrey Hills - several of my pals have had their cars keyed parking there when parking outside peoples houses - it seems there is somebody really objects to cyclist & wanders round keying any car which looks like it belongs to a cyclist. The worst being when "lycra w*nker" was keyed onto the boot of one friend.

The cost/benefit of car use has been looked into lots in the past. It is true that car users are subsidised by the general population as a whole:

First Google result that cropped up explained things quite well I thought. Caveat - no idea about source, relevant peer review etc.

My MiL lives on a terraced street where nobody has off-street parking.

She doesn't have a vehicle so the neighbours park outside her house, which is no problem, some of them have more than one car.

When we visit there's often a car outside her place - so we park wherever there's a gap - and one time another neighbour a few doors up came out shouting at my wife for parking in front of their house.

So where do you reckon I now make it a priority to park my van when I'm dropping in?

The true costs of car owning is more than drivers pay
One example is on street parking. A minority of car owners use a valuable resource owned by all. Value of this land varies. What's building land worth round your way?
Then there's the cost to theNHS of all the illness from pollution and,the cost's of traffic law enforcement etc etc

All these costs are borne by the taxpayers

Even the cost of roads is more than motoring taxes

But aren't cyclists also subsidised by the taxpayer? Isn't that how tax works anyway?

But aren't cyclists also subsidised by the taxpayer? Isn't that how tax works anyway?

I don't think it is the same order of magnitude as public transport users and motorists. The required level of infrastructure is lower, the health impact is a benefit (rather than a cost), manufacturing costs are lower, pollution is minimal (at point of use). Basically the impact of owning and using human power is far lower (walking or running is even better!) than using a vehicle with an electric motor or ICE.

Does this argument include the income generated, for the economy as a whole, by the car?

It starts to get stupidly complicated when factoring in things like indirect costs/benefits. So are you talking about direct benefits e.g. the manufacturing industry, the oil/petrol industry? Or the wider benefits/costs of allowing people/goods freedom to move farther and faster...

...up to a point when too many people want to do this and end up in traffic jams that cost the economy billions!

The old git who lives opposite me has knocked and complained a couple of times about my mum and dad parking outside MY house. Apparently is makes it difficult for his wife to get her car off the drive.

Same rules don't appear to apply when his visitors park directly opposite my driveway when they come and visit.

I'll be glad to see the back of him quite frankly.

It was more of a personal pov, I need to travel from Carlisle to Aberystwyth and am responsible for 10% of the revenue for my company. But yes, the argument becomes complicated.
Let's not forget that the car industry itself raises huge amounts of money for the economy too

I live on a residential street which is popular for parking. I have a drive which is regularly partially blocked by people handing over the edge of it. Mostly it's manageable.

In fact, I have next door's builder fully across it right now. This happens a lot as well. Do other STWers get irritated by having to ask neighbouring trades to move so they can get their car out??

I have no car and off street parking so I'm perhaps not the best palced person to comment on this. But, when I had a car and no parking the following helped me:
1. Drive a crap car. You want to nudge/scratch/dent my car? Fine, it'll add to the character.
2. Drive a small car. That half space space they've left so no-one can get into it? I can, and I will.
3. Stop caring. If you shout at me, I shall smile. If you write a note I will ignore it, If you block my car in, I will squeeze it out, see point 1.

I live in a terraced street with no off street parking and no one argues about it. I guess we're doing it wrong. 😕

We live in a terraced street with no off street parking, we also live just off a main road with lots of shops/bars and a vegan supermarket that has little car park space.

Our parking is a nightmare and our car ruined as both from and back bumpers have been bashed/scratched to high heaven.

Doesn't bother me, it's an old car but can be a bit of an inconvenience in the rain with two young children.

What annoys me most though is that there's a flower shop and she always parks her works van on our street. Annoyingly she also drives her own personal car to work and so has two cars on our street and leaves one or the other there when she goes home.

When politely asked why she did this instead of just using one car she went ballistic.

I'm guessing she also has parking issues at her house and so just creates them for others.

I'm fully with TJ on this one. It should be made a condition of planning to provide parking for each new development. A new (small) estate built at the top of the road has the genius concept of "half a drive" so people park half on the half a drive and half on the pavement. Luckily the road doesn't go anywhere but I'm sure the mums and dads who live on the estate get fed up of having to push their children into the road to get around some truly awful planning.

For terraced streets that already exist - the council should have to provide a car park for residents and the residents should have to pay for it.

And it's not necessarily a question of cost. Where we live in Oxford (Elms Rise) is more affordable* than many other areas (Jericho, especially). In Elms Rise, all the houses have drives or front gardens that can be converted to drives. Ours is half drive (with a Skoda Roomster on it - we're not rich!) / half garden. In Jericho, non of the houses have drives and all of the parking is on the street. House prices are more closely related to location and supply and demand rather than off-road parking.

* this is a generous use of the term. We couldn't afford to buy our house now.

It was more of a personal pov, I need to travel from Carlisle to Aberystwyth and am responsible for 10% of the revenue for my company. But yes, the argument becomes complicated.

Ouch, well calculating economic cost/benefit stuff for individuals is going to be even more of a nightmare! being more serious though, I think these things are taken into account when the Economists do their calculations.

Let's not forget that the car industry itself raises huge amounts of money for the economy too

In the short term yes. If the reliance on fossil fuels turns out to be the big mistake though, or some other unpredicted consequence occurs (sedentary lifestyle, hydrocarbon poisoning etc. a bit like the Pb anti-knocking agent), then the costs could make the benefits pale into insignificance.

I have no idea where Jenkins leaves the car. In the mews somewhere I presume.
I shall ask Cook, perhaps she knows? 😕

people who dump their cars outside other people's houses are antisocial cnts.

but I don't have the answerers for how to do it.

Having said that,there's still plenty of opportunity for mean/stupid/selfish behaviour by the dickheads, eg having off street parking and still parking on the road, buying a car just to block a space etc etc but, apart from calling them out on it, what else can you do?

*car ownership are so ingrained I don't doubt for a second that in some cases cash for the car would be diverted from essentials like food.

It should be made a condition of planning to provide parking for each new development

They changed the plans so there are now 6 spaces and we didn't object.

we don't want driving to become for rich people only.

Don't we? I'm all for the polluter pays principle. It means only rich people get to drive big, fuel guzzling tanks!

I would be surprised if the tax take on cars was not greater than the expenditure on infrastructure tbh

which admittedly you then have to balance against benefits.

I'm all for the polluter pays principle. It means only rich people get to drive big, fuel guzzling tanks!

In Asia everyone has scooters. Scooters are great, cheapr efficient transport for one person that doesn't require half the width of the road to park. And they're fun - people would have a great time on their way to work. Most of the people I see commuting into Oxford could do it on a scooter as there is usually one person sat in the traffic queue in their car. As I cycle past them with my daughter on the back - that's two people on a bike, not one in a car.

There's got to be a way of doing this fairlyer.

Yeah, maybe I was being a bit knee jerk.

I just don't see what the big thing is that car ownership is a "need" a "must have" in our society. So much so that everyone must have access to buying and owning their own otherwise society is deeming it unfair. Is it unfair that the very rich have access to helicopters but the rest of us don't? It's only another vehicle after all?

It seems ridiculous when they are so many other options available to car ownership (except for the 5% of the population who really do live in inaccessible locations).

edited to add - Like nerd's scooters above!

The difference is that Asia isn't cold for roughly 50% of the year.

My neighbour used to park one of their 3 cars directly opposite my drive, as they have no off street parking. Which made it a right bugger to reverse my car off. Before anyone says park forward, drive is downhill, parking nose up means that the oil pickup is starved on start up.

Knocked on their door and expalined that I was worried about reversing into their car as I'm a fairly rubbish driver and my car's a bit of a tanker, and hey presto, they left a gap big enough to reverse into.

Bloke over the road inherited his grandfather's bungalow then promptly demolished it and (less promptly) has spent almost three years building its dream home replacement. We've had many vans, lorries, early noise all that. No big deal I'm sure he'll finish it eventually and I won't have to look at his front garden portatoilet and plywood wall every bloody day. He has a double dropped kerb and can fit his two cars & toilet into his front garden. He rarely does this as he likes his builders to have the spaces.There is a small space between his dropped kerb and a lamp post. I recently parked my diddy little car in that space, it was 12.30am, he came out spitting feathers that I couldn't park there because he had a delivery in the morning (turns out he didn't), didn't ask politely, wasn't nice about it, just told me what I could and couldn't do on a public road. I think he is used to bossing people about at work. I was very, very rude indeed & we've not made eye contact since.

I'd like bad things to happen to him but also feel like he's dragged me down to his level the ****head.

Mate of mine had a large driveway with a double garage on it but used to leave his van on the otherwise pretty empty main road blocking one lane to stop the local "wee dicks" driving down the road at 70mph racing each other (2 lanes each way, pretty wide road) - problem was he stayed just round a slight bend & awoke one morning at 4am to find one of said bawbags being cut from the wreckage of some lurid coloured, plastic embellished shitheap which had taken the corner on two wheels & gone straight through the back doors of his van becoming a permanent feature... 😆

I stay in a fairly small village on the high street, close to the chippy/Indian/farmers market shop - sometimes at weekends I have to park a good 10m from the front door because it's so busy 😉

As for the land it belongs to all but I can't use it cos there's cars parked on it

Agreed, the streets were there before the cars in many cases, now not only can't they be used as general public space or a safe(ish) place for children to play and neighbours to interact, but they're also now consequently so much mroe crowded as EVERY street is full of cars, making them even more dangerous as visibility is reduced and people rush up and down them to get through before coming head to head with another car.

Go and visit one of the areas where they've re-pedestrianised residential streets, they are so much nicer, cleaner, quieter, less smelly and safer. There's still access for deliveries, disabled users, and occasional moving of large objects etc. but under normal circumstances they are car free with all the cars parked in mini-carparks and designated areas [i]close enough[/i] but not [i]in [/i] the residential street.

I don't currently live in such an area but if we ever move I'd love to end up in one of them.

We currently live in a terraced street, we have one car, it stays put for 6.5 days out of 7 normally so I don't give a monkeys where it is as long as I can walk to it within 5 mins. But some of the people in our road do get a bit uppity about parking, it just seems like such an un-necessary waste of mental effort though.

I wish we had a permit system on my road. Make it cheap for one car, expensive for the second and extortionate for the 3rd. Many people have two cars + work van or camper van. We have one car and often have to park 5 mins away.

Junky -

FWIW I live in a terraced house with no off street parking. We are lucky in that the other side of the road is a council depot so we ahve that side to park on. Some houses have driveways, some don't. We have enough on street parking for those who don't plus the houses running down the back provided everyone parks sensibly.

Am I still in favour of a first come first served permit system? Yes.

It doesn't really punish the poor, only poor planning. Want a new development to sell? Better put in parking provision then. In a city there's bugger all excuse for owning a car in the scenario I described, even extending out to the suburbs. Cars become a luxury but wasn't that what they were until relatively recently? Why does a household [b]need[/b] three cars? If they really do then something is fundamentally broken (and often is) which should be fixed.

Cars are merely a symptom, not a cause. Fix the issues that require car ownership and you fix the symptoms.

@dooosuk I'll wager you are near the Unicorn 🙂

The difference is that Asia isn't cold for roughly 50% of the year.

excuse mongering at it's finest - Wear a coat!

Like all the people that walk to work do, and so many car journeys are needlessly short that the heater doesn't get much of a chance anyway. Also, it doesn't really get that cold here, not compared to many places anyway...

For urban transport a car is rarely the best too for the job, but as a society we've convinced ourselves they're essential for everyone, and parking wars is just one of the many downsides of this.

Dunno how you fix it, certainly not going to be easy, or quick, but I think long term personal transport is going to have to change to smaller vehicles for everyday use, and shared ownership/pooling for longer trips for the majority of people living in urbanised areas, there simply isn't the space to continue on the current path...

Underground car parks for all new builds, car park charges for all cars parked on the streets, cars crushed for parking on kerbs and the removed earth from underground carparks is used to create local, cool bike trails? 😆

Underground car parks for all new builds

There are worse ideas...

excuse mongering at it's finest - Wear a coat!

hahaha, I cycle to work everyday no matter the weather.

I also own a motorbike or two. They're bloody hot in summer if you're wearing the correct kit, and bloody cold in winter if you aren't!

Thing is about Asia, as well as being warm so thermals aren't the issue. Most people are fairly relaxed about safety kit, and the traffic is all moving fairly slowly, so it's not really essential.

someone invent teleportation device like in 'The Fly' only without the horrific after effects.

I park outside my own house to stop others parking there

he best thing he ever did though was to buy a knackered old Golf, tax and insure it and dump it outside his own house to ensure no one ever parked outside.

I understand people not wanting cars parked outside their nice picket fence, and I understand the logic in parking in the street to deter speeders (though really it's nobbish behaviour and you should be lobbying the council for traffic-calming measures).

But what on earth do you gain by preventing others from parking there by parking there yourself? You've still got a bloody car parked outside! It's just peevish and, well, a bit weird. If you let others park there at least you'd get a change of scenery.

It means only rich people get to drive big, fuel guzzling tanks!

the reality is we have cars and many of us would struggle to get to work without them and need to change jobs so its not as simple as just saying you are poor tough shit.

Am I still in favour of a first come first served permit system? Yes.

It doesn't really punish the poor, only poor planning.

Fix the issues that require car ownership and you fix the symptoms.

I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but it's probably worth reposting.

>>

I was driving and needed to make a phone call. So I did the sensible thing, turned down a side street, switched off the engine and got out to make the call (and stretch my legs). The street was a curved cul-de-sac (I think), and there wasn't a single other car parked on it. I parked outside a bungalow with an empty driveway and enough road space to easily park three cars if not more.

By the time I'd got my phone out, some woman was out of the bungalow. "Are you going to be long?" she asks? Resisting the urge to reply "WTF has it got to do with you?" I figured, be nice, "no, just a couple of minutes, I'm only making a phone call."

"Right," she says, "only, I'm expecting visitors." 😯

I can get about 20 cars on my drive........I love this thread :).........flame away I dont care

In the short term yes. If the reliance on fossil fuels turns out to be the big mistake though, or some other unpredicted consequence occurs (sedentary lifestyle, hydrocarbon poisoning etc. a bit like the Pb anti-knocking agent), then the costs could make the benefits pale into insignificance.

Well in the long term we are all dead anyway. Meantime the fossil fueled modern economy has brought us health, longer lives, and comfort far in excess of previous generations.

I lived opposite a woman who painted her own disabled bay outside her house, even tho she didn't have a disabled badge. If anyone parked too close she just used to use her tank (Volvo 850) to push them out of the way.

Then she died.

Underground car parks for all new builds

Extra storage for flood water as well. Double win...

My old old house was up a private driveway which had a smal row for 3 other houses to essentially come up headfirst then reverse up their access drive. In truth they mostly turned round which worked fine. The space was there but it was actually all my land and I had the AUDACITY to park a car in my garage and 2 more outside the garage and to the side. My neighbour seemed to have taken to leaving his car basically in the turning circle as they didn't have room thereby blocking all my vehicles in. I used to have to repeatedly go and get him to move it and explain that it was access one and not parking but he was a total arrisole and felt that he could do what he wanted. Anyway one night his car was stolen and he reported me to the police as prime suspect! He never did park there again.

Extra storage for flood water as well. Double win...

Anyway one night his car was stolen and he reported me to the police as prime suspect! He never did park there again.

Moi ? What an accusation !

Years ago I used to live on a street in Bristol with no off road parking and there were what you could describe as a few self appointed parking police neighbours.
I had a black works Transit that caused so many of them to moan it was taking 2 spaces that I just parked it 200 meters away in a Doctors car park (not used while I was parking there)
One evening I walked back to my house to see an almost identical but 2 years newer black transit parked close to my house!
Next morning it had 2 dents & 1 scratch on the kerb side, that evening it had several more scratches and a note under the wipers.

As I was leaving for work the next morning a policeman approached me to ask about the van, I said its not mine as I got so much grief from various locals about parking & showed him mine round the corner.

His face lit up and he then told me it was one of their own vans kitted out for surveillance that they had moved into the area following a drugs tip off.

Turns out 3 of my Parking Nazi neighbours were caught on the cameras damaging it & 1 got a big fine + community service as he had previous for aggressive behavior to a child.

Never did find out who was dealing drugs though.

Dont disagree but it will be electoral suicide to have a policy if banning car use and making everyone use public transport except those rich enough to pay.

Just as well that's nothing like what I've proposed then.

Read what I said again, I'm not proposing banning cars from the street, I'm saying that those who wish to do so will be allocated a permit (with as many permits as spaces) on a first come first serve basis. Anyone who already has a parking space or permit goes to the back of the line. Like they already do in Japan [s]to persecute the poor[/s] because space is scarce. They also have decent public transport in their cities which, like I also said, would work hand in hand to reduce the reliance on car ownership.

Things will change. A few city developments are being built with underground parking and car club vehicles available to residents instead of buying a car parking space. I know of at least one development sold with covenants preventing the owners owning / parking cars in the neighbourhood. Some cities in Europe are taking quite proactive approaches to creating better public space on streets with bike share, car share and reduced parking. This has benefits for air quality, safer cycling and pedestrian spaces plus it looks much nicer.

Obviously the divine right to park in the road outside your house has to be tackled to make it work. But it will be. Not quickly enough to change the passive aggressive noters soon. But it will happen...

Regarding TJ's point about the valuable public land being taken up by cars: through our local cycle campaign I've heard of a several cases where proposals for good cycle facilities were blocked because it would impact on resident's on-street parking.

And I'm sure everyone knows the pain of cycle lanes permanently blocked by parked cars.

My previous rented flat had a Car Club space outside it, the poor thing would just sit there while people bumped into it, stole the wing mirrors, wipers and wheel trims and occasionally it would get stolen! When I say it, I mean the two 500's, one Punto and an Aygo they worked through. I still go to the area when I get my haircut and either they have started using beaten up Peugeot 306's or they've given up 😆

That reminds me, one of my neighbours there couldn't understand why I rode to work every day when I had a perfectly useable car...

*smug mode*. Aah, the new pad has a 40m frontage, and a driveway for a fleet

Our row of terraces has a bus stop / double yellers at one end. I've mastered the art of parking millimeters from where they start which leaves just enough spaces for everyone to fit in, all is well.

I carshare or cycle most days (takes a bow), but if I drive then the utopian dream is shattered when I get back with me being left 3/4 of a space my end because of someone further up the line.

Takes days of musical chairs before equilibrium finally returns. How hard can it be to park in the same spot!

Read what I said again, I'm not proposing banning cars from the street

Again I dont disagree with reducing the reliance on cars/ parking and improving public transport which can be excellent in built up conurbations and should be improved. However the result of any policy that limits on street parking can only harm those who are not wealthy enough to have a drive- ie poor people.

"However the result of any policy that limits on street parking can only harm those who are not wealthy enough to have a drive- ie poor people"

Poor people are already much less likely to have a car than wealthy people (cars cost money, after all). At the same time, they are also much more likely live near busy roads (rich people like owning cars, but they aren't so stupid as to want to live too close to the consequences of their cars) and suffer physically and mentally from the pollution, noise and general unpleasantness associated with that. Restricting parking or access to cars more generally would benefit, not harm, many or most poor people, in particular in cities (where parking is most scarce).

Furthermore the logic of arguing that ending what amount to large subsidies for car parking would be unfair because poor people would be less able to afford to have a car is bizarre. You realise that cars cost money to own and run and many poor people are already priced out from owning one? Does that mean we should fully subsidise all aspects of car ownership and operation, so that everyone can do it? Otherwise it's not fair on very poor people, right? Should we also subsidise every other thing that only rich people can do so that everyone can do it - private jet travel, yacht-owning, that kind of thing? Otherwise it's not fair on poor people.

Being rich by definition means that you can afford more than someone who is poor, and vice-versa. If you find that unfair, the solution isn't to subsidise everything so that everyone can consume it to an insanely wasteful extent, it's to reduce economic inequality. Or in the case of specific goods such as private car ownership, to ban it entirely. Either would work fine for me.

Reading on another forum today about bollards outside a house,a neighbour replaced them with the huge motorway ones, and filed them with post fix concrete, powder you add water to and it sets hard,neighbour who owned the originals came out next day to move his new inherited bollards and couldnt lift or move them, as they had concreted themselves to flor

Furthermore the logic of arguing that ending what amount to large subsidies for car parking would be unfair because poor people would be less able to afford to have a car is bizarre.

Deciding to curtail car use via a policy that will harm poor people is not the most fair way of achieving a goal we want to achieve. That is all I have said.

I dont see it as having argued for communism either which is the point you seem to have addressed rather than the point i made.

I think parts of Japan have a system whereby you have to demonstrate you have space to store a car before you can buy one.

We need someone to invent a fast, cheap pollution free urban transport vehicle that is simple enough to be operated by an 8 year old, and small enough that it takes up less than 1/5 of a cars footprint.

I have said that adding a new tax, cost or tariff to it will disproportionately fall on the poor

*sigh* none of which have been proposed. It's a list, first come first served. No money changes hands. In any given area the income levels will be broadly similar as a rule so I'm not sure where you get this idea from that on problem parking streets the rich will get all the spots whilst the poor are priced out this imaginary market.

As for the "premium" of a house with a parking space, suburbs are already more expensive to move into than a terraced street of two up two downs so again, this seems to be an entirely imagined problem.

This doesn't harm poor people, it harms people who have far too many bloody cars. In my street alone it has gone from parking on one side to a full on quarter mile capilliary in the five years since I moved here, nothing to do with public transport changing (still as crap as it always was) but more people getting cars with nowhere to park the damn things!

Where do you live squirrelling? Largs IIRC?

My street is the opposite, rammed during the day with shoppers and office staff, usually only 2 or 3 cars at night as most folks moved so close to town to get rid of a car, or they didn't drive in the first place.

Local council started 4 new traffic wardens a couple of years back, but to be honest they have too big a patch to be effective. New parking scheme is 45 quid per year per car, I have a drive so don't really need one, but I'll buy one for visitors etc.

Never understood note writing,

Sorry, replying three pages later! This mainly applied to my situation. I can normally see people parking a couple of inches from my door and in my experience have found talking works better. Most people are actually polite and just don't seem to realise blocking my front door or sitting there at 23:00 with music blasting is a problem. Lots of folk are really self absorbed. They usually move along / turn music down and apologise or move the car off the pavement when asked.

I've only had three people get arsey with me in five years. They still moved though after warnings about things possibly falling out of windows 🙂 one guy once parked literally three inch from my door. I saw him coming back up the road and decided it was a great time to go for a ride. Got the bike out at shoulder height and rolled it over the bonnet whilst saying a cheery good morning and squeezing myself around the car. His face was a picture!

I'm honestly not that bothered about people parking outside on the double yellows. It's when they choose to park entirely on the footpath and make loads of noise that it bothers me. Doesn't help having an unnecessarily huge bit of footpath outside our door. It's like a magnet to people looking for parking.