A while back I blogged about the ‘toilet van’ that is regularly parked across a pavement near where I live. The latest arrival is a burger trailer which now appears to have taken up permanent residence half on/half off a pavement on a road close to a local shop which is used by over 1,000 pedestrians a day during term-time. I wrote to the local police a few weeks ago asking them to do something about this, and to various other very badly parked vehicles with no response – and the trailer is still there. In case anyone is interested, authorities have the power to remove “any structure [that] has been erected or set up on a highway“, including “any machine, pump, post or other object of such a nature as to be capable of causing obstruction notwithstanding that it is on wheels”.(Highways Act 1980 Section 143)
Burger trailer being illegally 'stored' half on the pavement
There is a private member’s bill making it way though the Scottish Parliament at present which aims to deal with this sort of thing. If it does make it into law, there is a chance that it will set a president which our southern neighbour might just follow. Scotland does seem to be a policy incubator, testing out new ideas, probably because Holyrood is designed to be more in touch with the people than Westminster.
Thanks Kim. I have been noticing that legislation and seeing how, if anything, it has been getting stronger rather than being watered down.
The Scots are leading the way here. OT: in my area I have the police seemingly on-side over a particular example of dangerous PP near a school and they’re aware of the driving on footway law. Let’s see what happens next term…
Just discovered this website: http://www.regerme.com I had thought of starting something like this myself. You can report inconsiderate driving here and anyone can look up by registration number. Next time I buy a second hand car I’ll be checking the reg to see how it’s been driven. Let’s hope this isn’t shut down by some crazy data protection regulation.