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
Pedestrian Liberation 
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.