Here’s an interesting article that I lifted from an online feed. – thanks go to, LocalGov.co.uk and Nick Appleyard. It makes the point local councillors have been making ever since the days when Labour’s John Prescott and his Office (ODPM) interfered with the planning system.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Prescott (now both long gone, thankfully) decided you could reduce use of the private car simply by reducing the space people had to park them outside their homes. Playing straight into the hands of those developers who never miss a chance to squeeze more and more into less and less, we now now have whole swathes of housing development with inadequate parking provision, leading to exactly the problems highlighted in this article.
LocalGov.co.uk 09 May 2012
Parking ‘can keep neighbourhood peace’
By Nick Appleyard
Poor council parking policies can lead to an increase in crime, dangers to pedestrians and poor public health, experts claimed today.
The stark warning came in a report from the Institute of Highway Engineers (IHE) and the chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation (CIHT).
The Government removed national limits on residential parking as part of its ‘end to the war ing son the motorist’ in January 2011. But local authorities are still required to set their own parking standards and the two organisations have issued fresh guidance to ensure the right decisions are made which will benefit communities.
The guidance said allocating parking to individual homes increases the amount of space needed and suggested more flexible approaches increase overall use of space.
It also claimed car parks ‘tucked away’ behind developments are prone to vandalism and crime and are therefore underused leading to ‘serious’ on-street parking problems.
The guidance said strict enforcement of on-street parking makes garage parking more likely, but stressed garage doors need to be high and wide enough for modern vehicles.
‘Parking problems manifest themselves in pavement parking, blocked driveways, difficult access for delivery vehicles and refuse collectors, damage to verges, trees and footpaths, and cluttered, unsightly streets,’ the organisations said. ‘The Government has concluded that national constraint policies have led to ‘significant levels of on-street parking causing congestion and danger to pedestrians’. In preparing new policies, local authorities are being urged to make the right decisions for the benefit of their communities.
Roger Gambba-Jones 