Most of the time you arent allowed to leave commercial vehicles in suburban residential areas overnight (even on driveways). But councils dont bother to enforce it.
Ban on cars parking on pavements.
- Thread starter Eurofighter
- Start date
Most of the time you arent allowed to leave commercial vehicles in suburban residential areas overnight (even on driveways). But councils dont bother to enforce it.
Where thats the case, they'll simply paint bays on them and put up the appropriate signage, as already exists across the London boroughs.
For example:
For many self employed with vans there’s no choice. Vans have to be kept at home. This law may not apply any more but I read that a neighbour complained about a plumber or joiner keeping his van off the road in his driveway. Council told the man that he had to park it on the street as it was a public highway. Which caused chaos as it was a narrow street...
Caporegime
So you were held at gunpoint until you rented that property?
Of course you had a choice, you chose to park on the pavement, on the corner of a narrow road.
Soldato
The estate I currently live on when it was first built it was in your deeds that you can't park on the path or road and you had to park on your driveway which was great as you could come and go without issue, over the last 10 years and especially once the builder went bust everyone has started to park on the path and roads. If you've got a pram you'll be forced to walk down the middle of the road as you'll not fit it through the 'gap' left by people parking on the paths.
The newest estate in our village has done this. The car park is 2/3 empty and every house has at least one car parked outside it on the tiny narrow road. Only people who consistently seem to use the car parks are those with third cars, motorhomes, vans etc. or those with seconds cars begrudgingly when they can't squeeze on the street.
Ambulances haven't been able to get through and sometimes the bins don't get emptied as they simply can't get the bin lorry close enough. Really glad I don't live there, would stress me out!
I'm afraid I totally agree that if you can't park your car somewhere that isn't going to impact other people then that is your problem. We are house hunting (sort of) at the moment and parking has caused us to rule out many potential houses, its just a factor to consider like any other when buying or renting somewhere.
Things aren't always black and white like that.
The problem for a lot of people (myself included as it goes) will be that when they bought their houses (15 years ago for me) there was space for parking properly, but now there isn't and it's often a choice between parking on the road and blocking it, or parking on the pavement and blocking that. I live in a cul de sac at the end of a cul de sac. People walk on the road, not the pavement anyway. If you were pushing a pram or in a chair, you'd also use the road. The pavements are basically for parking wheelie bins on, they're old, narrow and uneven (main cul de sac is Victorian).
I suppose I could move, but then I probably wouldn't get a mortgage at the moment so I'd have to move to a much worse area in a smaller house, despite being able to afford to live where I live.
There's plenty of places where parking on the pavement is a better solution than parking on the road.
Caporegime
Exactly. We’ve also been tentatively looking for somewhere bigger, but whilst our house is currently small, and the garage wouldn’t fit a moderately sized car, we can fit 5 cars on the drive.
This makes it very hard to find something that is a) better and b) in budget.
If there was space to park before then there is space to park now, and all the idiots parking on the road/pavement should have either a) not bought the extra car(s), b) parked elsewhere and walked the last half-mile, or c) moved somewhere appropriate.
FWIW I live at the end of a cul-de-sac (the last house) and whilst walking from 50 yards down the road to our house would indeed be on the road, that doesn’t excuse the morons that live on the other 800 yards of the road blocking BOTH the pavement AND the road (to the point where we get missed bin collections due to inability to get the lorry down the road).
Nah, 15 years ago, our village was smaller and there wasn't a supermarket at the bottom of the road attracting as much traffic. There also wasn't about 10 or so 20 year olds who still live with their parents and now own cars. There's about twice as many cars now. Which means people parking nose to tail which means no passing points if people park on the road.
You can't just expect EVERYONE to up sticks and move, especially when a lot of the problem has been caused by development, nor can you expect people in a village to live without means of transport to work. Especially, when on this road, other than the shortage of parking, there's no problem. Deliveries and bins, fine. Prams and wheelchairs, fine. So long as people park on the pavement.
Essentially, what they'd have to do here is rip up the pavement and turn it into road. That's just bonkers.
Last edited:
Soldato
The problem is commercial vehicle is often added to the deeds by the builders to keep the estates looking nice whilst they are selling
Once they move on they dont give a stuff obviously. Its why you have terms like cannot remove trees for 5 years etc
There is no specific legal definition of a commercial vehicle.
Is a company car a commercial vehicle if its used for business purposes etc
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Why did you have no option? Was it the only place for rent within 25 miles?
Obviously not. But seeing as we didn't have many options for where to go it was the best and most affordable solution. There is no space for anyone to park and it was on the way to a large industrial estate so frequently had lots of HGVs driving up and down the road so cars on both side would have to park a bit on the pavement.
Wheelchair users and people pushing pushchairs were always able to get down both sides of the pavement so it's not that bad.
It's not even that it was particularly narrow. It's just due to the nature of cars that went down there.
It was affordable and was available on short notice with good terms. Sadly not everyone has it easy enough to find the perfect place and you have to make do with what you can get and what suits your needs.
Anyway, currently somewhere with space for about 5 cars on the drive and fortunately our house will have a designated parking space.
Our street cars block both sides of the pavement that's just how it is, just not enough room to park on the road even one car would block the road.
It's a quiet area so everyone just walks up the road.
On the future we are hoping to flatten the front garden so we can fit the 2nd car on there as well, already have a drive with a car on.
The neighbors with 4 cars is annoying though.
It's a quiet area so everyone just walks up the road.
On the future we are hoping to flatten the front garden so we can fit the 2nd car on there as well, already have a drive with a car on.
The neighbors with 4 cars is annoying though.
Clauses in deeds still stand in some places and it's like that for the houses in my area.
People don't mind if it's those custom VW things, which are quite compact. But the big transit vans take up a lot of room and roads are really too tight for them inside an estate.
I'm all for it. During lockdown, I had to walk the pram on the road through a junction, regardless of the end of the road I walked down.
At one end, there were two vans and two cars blocking the pavement, all belonging to the one property. They have a drive big enough for 3-4 cars. But their kid gets exclusive use of it for his heavily modded BMW 1-Series. Can't risk damaging the dear boy's pride and joy, I guess?
At the other end, there's a tree surgeon who has his work's van and trailer, a camper van, a Nissan Navara, and a small hatchback. Again, the driveway is a good size. But there's simply no plausible way that all of that stuff fits on it. So he has to block the pavement on both sides of the road.
Considering every house has a driveway big enough for at least two cars, there are way too many vehicles parked on the pavement. On a street of 40 houses, there's roughly 20 cars on the pavement as I'm writing this. And it's like this around the whole estate. Busses regularly have to drive on the pavement to get past parked cars because there simply isn't enough room.
I do agree that a blanket ban could be a bad thing. But there's no reason why it can't be handled as it is in London; put in marked bays where there is space and it is sensible to do so.
No doubt if something like this comes in, a solution will emerge for those with works vehicles that they no longer have space for. Renting a space in a large car park on an industrial estate, for example? Drive there, pick up your van, do the day's work, drive back, collect your car and drive home.
At one end, there were two vans and two cars blocking the pavement, all belonging to the one property. They have a drive big enough for 3-4 cars. But their kid gets exclusive use of it for his heavily modded BMW 1-Series. Can't risk damaging the dear boy's pride and joy, I guess?
At the other end, there's a tree surgeon who has his work's van and trailer, a camper van, a Nissan Navara, and a small hatchback. Again, the driveway is a good size. But there's simply no plausible way that all of that stuff fits on it. So he has to block the pavement on both sides of the road.
Considering every house has a driveway big enough for at least two cars, there are way too many vehicles parked on the pavement. On a street of 40 houses, there's roughly 20 cars on the pavement as I'm writing this. And it's like this around the whole estate. Busses regularly have to drive on the pavement to get past parked cars because there simply isn't enough room.
I do agree that a blanket ban could be a bad thing. But there's no reason why it can't be handled as it is in London; put in marked bays where there is space and it is sensible to do so.
No doubt if something like this comes in, a solution will emerge for those with works vehicles that they no longer have space for. Renting a space in a large car park on an industrial estate, for example? Drive there, pick up your van, do the day's work, drive back, collect your car and drive home.
Last edited:
I'm in a cul-de-sac and there is a 5 bedroom house opposite the junction, with a huge double garage and driveway....
...They park the on the road, on the junction which is OFC illegal. After one car got hit during the night you'd think they would learn, but nope they still do it. Some people are just too lazy to pull in to a driveway :/
Then further along there is a big van blocking the view down a hill, plus the exit from a pathway where most pedestrians cross. He parks it there every night.
...They park the on the road, on the junction which is OFC illegal. After one car got hit during the night you'd think they would learn, but nope they still do it. Some people are just too lazy to pull in to a driveway :/
Then further along there is a big van blocking the view down a hill, plus the exit from a pathway where most pedestrians cross. He parks it there every night.
Last edited:
I agree with pretty much most the bits you say apart from this bit. While it's a better than having big vans in residential areas that just seems like doubling the commute and a pretty big impact on the environment. We should be trying to reduce the amount of miles people do, not extend them further.
Soldato
I dont doubt they still exist, I have them and think have for over 20 years in a few houses, I said no one enforces them, and the simple reason is, they are basically unenforceable because there are numerous versions of what is a commercial vehicle.
They often also list caravans, thats not open to interpretation but those aren't enforced either, then you get people who put boats in their front gardens
I am pretty sure my last house also stated no parking on the road only in designated places. Everyone ignored that
They also said no aerials or sky dishes, again common, everyone ignored that once a few people started putting them up
The point is these are basically never enforced once the developer moves on.
And for most people this is good, would you really want some jobs worth constantly say you have to take that down, move that, plant a new tree here etc
Or do you just want to selectively have parts of the numerous things developers put in enforced
I can see both side of the argument when it come to parking on the path, being a motorist and having to regularly push my disabled mother in law home from ours once a week. We regularly have to use the road due to people not leaving enough space to get by on the path. It is highly frustrating, but people do need to park their cars or vans. The problem is the amount per house hold.
I have to park half on and half off the path a lot of the time because the parking spaces have been used already. We live in a 80s build so the roads are not to narrow, but it is a small close and there is one parking space per house and it’s first comes so that’s 12 spaces. The issue we have is the amount of cars in the close, we have 2 like most of my neighbours. Then there those who have a lot more. One house has 1 van and 5 cars. Another with 3 cars and another with 2 vans and 2 cars. There are times when I have to park around the corner because there is not enough space, but that then has a knock on affect to that street. I would hate to live on those new build estates, specially if you needed the emergency services.
I have to park half on and half off the path a lot of the time because the parking spaces have been used already. We live in a 80s build so the roads are not to narrow, but it is a small close and there is one parking space per house and it’s first comes so that’s 12 spaces. The issue we have is the amount of cars in the close, we have 2 like most of my neighbours. Then there those who have a lot more. One house has 1 van and 5 cars. Another with 3 cars and another with 2 vans and 2 cars. There are times when I have to park around the corner because there is not enough space, but that then has a knock on affect to that street. I would hate to live on those new build estates, specially if you needed the emergency services.