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Breaking news – new powers for councils to tackle pavement parking?

21 Feb

No pavement parking signage (as published in The Sun)

The Sun has reported in today’s paper that the Transport Minister Norman Baker is about to announce a ‘nationwide blitz on motorists who selfishly force pushchair mums into the road’.

He will evidently be writing to all council chiefs today to inform them of their new powers which allow them to create traffic regulation orders covering local pavement parking blackspots. After installing warning signs they will be able to fine those who park on or partly on the pavement £70. More details will no doubty follow soon.

I have selected a range of supportive and opposing comments from The Sun’s website which I have reproduced verbatim. Clearly there is considerable support for getting cars off pavements and also a vocal group of more ‘extreme motorists’ who will fight this tooth and nail.

Supportive:

  • I am in a wheelchair and live on a road used by drivers to park like that for the day and buddy up to go into town. There are no dropped curbs near these idiots so I often have to travel several hundred yards on the road which is a major bus route
  • Good. I am sick and tired of having to squeeze past cars parked like that. Trouble is though will there be anyone to give out the fines? Secondly will anyone of the selfish drivers pay? I doubt it.
  • Get a fleet of tow trucks and haul their cars away for a week that will make them think twice about being so inconsiderate.
  • We in Basingstoke, have a second hand car dealer, right on a set of busy traffic lights, he has NO customer parking, so they park on the pavement, which not only makes people have to walk in the road, but causes mayhem at peak times, so I welcome these rules.
  • Parking on the pavement is NEVER an option.  Indeed, being allowed to park on the road at all is a privilege.  There was a 17th century High Court judge who ruled that “the highway shall not be used as a stable”.  That ruling is still in force today.
  • I think its a good idea, though it does point out its not a blanket ban as sometimes people need to park that way, and don’t block pavements. As a mother I’m sick of having to go round cars selfishly parked on the path. It’s not right.
  • Some of you need to remember, pavements are for people, not cars. That’s what roads are for, so good on him for finally doing something.
  • About time too. There are no acceptable excuses for parking on pavements. If the road is too narrow to allow other vehicles to pass with vehicles parked on a pavement, that is an indication that vehicles should not be parked in that road not that vehicles should be parked on the pavement. Why do motorists consider pedestrians to be second class citizens? The rights of a pedestrian to walk along a pavement are just as important as the right of a motorist to drive along a road.

Opposing

  • traffic waldon’s are filth
  • MOTORIST`S HAVE NO CHOICE – A LOT OF ROAD`S ARE TOO NARROW FOR TWO WAY TRAFFIC TO FLOW AND THEN HAVE CARS FULLY PARKED ON THE ROAD.
  • TRANSPORT MINISTER BAKER SHOULD BE FINING COUNCILS FOR NOT DEALING WITH POT HOLES.
  • Wahay. Another way to rip off motorists. Can I set up a direct debit to have all my motoring fines each month paid straight to the exchequor?
  • Are they gonna widen the roads then? the only reason to park on the pavement like that is because the road is too narrow to park on normally, without risk of having your car side swiped. how does this also “force” buggy pushing mothers into the road?
  • This is just another of what will be an ever increasing methods the government will use to extract money from us the hard working public. The at the same time after taking massive taxes and spurious fines then have the cheek to tell us that we need.
  • I’d rather force a mother into the road, where she can stop, look, listen and navigate carefully than park my car obstructively in the road.
  • Will they make extra spaces in places where they have to enforce such rulings? like hell they will, they’ll just coin it in whenever someone gets sick of the inconvenience of parking half a mile down the road
  • I don’t even know where to begin with this, this is open to so much abuse it is ridiculous.  Wide vehicles regularly MUST park partially on the pavement to prevent endangering motorists on narrow roads, or even blocking them completely.

Update

Today’s government press release on the subject.

“The Department for Transport has given all councils in England permission to use signs to indicate a local pavement parking ban. Until now councils have had to gain special signs authorisation from Government each time they want to put a pavement parking ban in place.

In the press release Norman Baker clearly states that the regulations are aimed at a ‘selfish minority’ who ‘dump their cars wherever it suits them without a second thought for others’. Good stuff!

FOI request regarding prosecutions for ‘driving on’ and ‘obstructing’ the footway

12 Feb

I have just submitted a Freedom of Information request to Suffolk Constabulary to find out how many people have been prosecuted for ‘driving on the footway’ and for ‘obstructing’ of the footway over the past 2 years in the county. I am expecting the number of to quite low, indeed for driving on the footway it am expecting it be very low even though every car parked on the pavement was most clearly also driven on and off the pavement as well!

I have asked Suffolk Constabulary because they are my local police force, not because I think they are particularly bad – indeed I am very impressed with my local seargent who is both supportive and knowledgeable on the subject.

FOI request – Suffolk Constabulary

Considerate Parking Initiative in Essex

30 Jan

A ‘Considerate Parking Initiative’ was started in Brightlingsea, Essex by a partnership of Essex Police, Tendring District Council, Brightlingsea Town Council and the Tendring Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership in December 2009.

Bogus parking tickets deliberately designed fool drivers, complete with the official logos and the right sort of plastic bag, were stuck onto the windscreens of vehicles which had been parked “inconsiderately”, but which didn’t break the law. The scheme won the ‘Living Streets Award’ and at the 2010 British Parking Awards and was extended in April 2010 and again in January 2010.

Inconsiderate Parking scheme launched

Norman Baker – our man

29 Jan

Norman Baker is the ‘Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State’  in charge of public transport issues, walking cycling etc and is therefore ‘our man’.

In the past he has pressed for action on the issue. In January 2010 as shadow Secretary of State for Transport he asked: “To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport for what reason powers to ban pavement parking outside London were not included in the revised civil enforcement powers introduced in 2009.” to which he got the answer “Local authorities outside London already have powers to prohibit parking on the footway where they consider this to be a problem, using Traffic Regulation Orders and appropriate traffic signs. They are also able to use physical measures such as high kerbs or bollards, which are self-enforcing and effective… There are no powers in primary legislation for the Secretary of State to make regulations that would enable local authorities to ban parking on the footway without a Traffic Regulation Order”. He was right to ask and the suggestion in the response that Traffic Regulation Orders are appropriate was ingenuous. Traffic Regulation Orders are expensive and the cost is often given as the reason for inaction.

He is of course now making the rules not challenging them. In August 2010 he gave an in-depth interview on general issue of parking in Local Transport Today – available for subscribers only – which was detailed, and fair except that he barely mention the issue of pavement parking. He did however meet with Living Streets the same month who reported that he was ‘open’ to taking action on the issue.  We now need to raise the profile of the issue with all of our MPs so that he does!

Here are a few quotes from the Local Transport Today article:

“Baker sees nothing wrong with councils charging for parking in town and city centres. “Nobody likes to pay for parking if you can get it for nothing — that’s just human nature,” he says. “But if people step back and think about it they will accept it is legitimate to charge for parking. Provided it is a fair price, and it is properly enforced, then they are happy with that.

“I think motoring itself has a consequence for society in terms of emissions and everything else, which is reflected in charges levied, whether through national taxation or local parking charges

“A “fair price” depends on where you park. “A fair price in Brighton is very different to the price in a village. To some degree it is driven by public transport alternatives. I don’t object to parking charges being high in Brighton because there are very good bus and train services there. If I want to drive to Brighton I should pay a bit more to park there than if I drive somewhere where there is no public transport. These are localised decisions.

“Baker is in favour of car clubs, and points out that car club charity Carplus has received £40,000 in extra government funding to help it continue its accreditation, data collection and information services. He notes that membership of car clubs in the UK has gone up from 22,000 in 2007 to more than 127,000 this year.

“Councils should also consider setting resident permits and car park charges based on a vehicle’s emission level, suggests Baker. “You might look at some point in the future as to whether parking becomes cheaper for low emission vehicles,” he says.

“He wants to see an improved customer “interface” between civil enforcement officers (CEOs), operators and the public. “There is a need to make a distinction between different types of offender.” He offers the example of a heavily pregnant woman who overstays slightly at a pay & display bay. She should be given some leeway, says Baker, unlike “some guy popping into the kebab shop, who is just parked on the pavement because it happens to be convenient to do so, when there is a parking space opposite.“ These are different situations, so I want people to be trained to make those sorts of value judgements and not feel obliged to stick to the rules absolutely.”

West Yorkshire Police use facebook for ‘lively’ debate on pavement parking

28 Jan

The Poltifract Safer Neighboroughoods Team, which is part of West Yorkshire police have had great results from their Facebook page with debates on many subjects; the subject that created the most debate  … yup, pavement parking.

I was particularly pleased to see this report on a visit to a particular street by the police: “PCSO Paul Guest visited a street in Pontefract yesterday after reports of a number of vehicles parked on pavements. PCSO Guest was suprised to find that not only were the vehicles parked on the pavements, they were double parked and some vehicles were parked on the bend at the end of the street”. They went on to say: “PCSO’s will continue patrols in this area and if the same vehicles are seen parked on the pavement again, fixed penalty notices will be issued.” Also that “The pictured vehicles are both illegally parked. As you can see prams and wheelchairs cannot safely pass the vehicles on the footpath. They would have to go into the road to pass the vehicles”. Great stuff.

West Yorkshire Police say this car is causing an obstruction

Not all police forces agree that totally blocking a pavement is obstruction, for example the police in Bristol apparently deemed that this car was not causing an obstruction.

Police in Bristol said that this car was not causing an obstruction

Personally I am very interested is West Yorkshire’s use of Facebook. Many public bodies seem to shy away from debating anything in public. My experience locally is that the police are far better at this than local councils. Hopefully we will see many more Facebook pages for communities to debate with authorities on many subjects in the future.

Getting the attention of MPs

23 Jan

On Friday I have a meeting with my local MP, Ben Gummer,where I made a presentation of the issues and their urgency and was pleased to get his support. He offered to provide a link to the campaign from his new website when it goes live in a ‘few weeks’ and to also draw it to the attention of Norman Baker, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport with responsibility for ‘sustainable travel’. All good stuff.

As it happened, Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge was pressing Terrasa Villiers, Minister of State for Transport in on the issue of pavement parking in the Commons on the same day saying: “Could the law be adjusted so that the presence of a vehicle in a cycle path or on a footway be taken as evidence that it was driven there, rather than appearing magically, as seems to be assumed at the moment”. Unfortunately Villiers failed to acknowledge or respond to the request. This problem isn’t going to get fixed over night!

DPD Express Parcels demonstrated the issue to be convincingly outside my MP’s office by parking diagonally across the pavement for no reason and then trying to justify it.

DPD express parcel delivery across the pavement outside my MP’s office

And then as I left I came across this nice pair of signs positioned to cause as much trouble as possible including a road works sign which maintenance companies are apparently required to leave across the pavement.

Why obstruct the pavement with warning signs!

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Turf wars in Brighton and Hove

20 Jan

Back in March 2010 it was reported that Brighton and Hove council was looking into using a by-law created by East Sussex Council which banned parking on verges but which hasn’t applied to the area since the 1990s when Brighton and Hove became a unitary authority. Councillor Meadows, who was promoting the idea explained that: “Parking on grass verges not only causes a muddy mess during winter months but also problems for people wanting to cross roads safely”.

Given that I can find on further reference to this idea then I suspect that it may have been dropped. The local paper did however publish a helpful photo of a messed up verge.

Muddy verges could be a thing of the past … possibly (copyright image)

Needless to say, one doesn’t need to go to Brighton to see such scenes, there are plenty available closer to home!

Labour continues opposition to pavement parking ban in Reading

20 Jan

We reported some time back that the local Labour group in Reading were campaigning against a pavement parking ban in the town as promoted by the local Tory and Lib Dem council claiming that it was just a ‘cash cow’. Since then Labour councillor Jan Gavin has been pressing the administration to say “which roads would become impassable to emergency vehicles and bin collection carts if they parked wholly on the road”. Notice the implication in that statement that motorists will ‘have to park on the pavement‘. Is she implying that it is the responsibility of the council to ensure that motorists can store as many vehicles on the highway without charge as they wish and if these vehicles spill onto the pavement then that is just one of those things! Car clubs? no thanks. Cycling? not really. Walking? only if you can find a gap wide enough on the pavement or wish to take your chances on the road.

It got messier when a Freedom of Information request that she submitted was refused as being ‘not in the public interest’. She is now celebrating that the administration appears to be letting the issue slip commenting “Cllr Willis accused Labour Group of obstructing the proposal, me and Labour colleagues of scaremongering and clearly stated that it had never been their intention for there to be a widespread systematic fining of people who were sensibly parked on the kerb”. Are we going to get a definition of ‘sensible pavement parking then?”. Isn’t local politics wonderful.

She also helpfully published this photograph on her blog showing how little pavement is left for pedestrians in the current situation. Could you get down there with a buggy? or with shopping, with a guide dog or in a wheelchair. Well – it would be a challenge. I am passing a link to this blog to her in case she objects to my reuse of the image or feels I have not presented her views fairly.

Local councillor campaigning against pavement parking ban in Reading (copyright image)

E-petition to tackle illegal pavement parking in Brighton

19 Jan

A local e-petition has been launched relating to illegal parking in ‘Baker’s Bottom’ in Brighton. Following a local area meeting with the police, a local Police Community Support Officer organized a letter for all the residents in that area recieved more than 35 responses and formed the basis of the petition which is now available on the Brighton and Hove City Council website.

Being pedantic, the current parking situation is not illegal given that pavement parking is only illegal if it causes an obstruction (which is often hard to prove) or if some other specific regulation applies. If it was already illegal then the requested double yellow lines would not be required! Needless to say, the legal process of putting in yellow lines is time-consuming and expensive and would have to be paid for by all residents of the borough whether they drive or not and whether they park on the pavement or not!

Incidentally, the coalition government required all local councils to enable residents to submit online petitions and have it working by the end of last year.

Baker’s Bottom

Learning from Detroit

11 Jan

I had the privilege to find myself in Detroit for 10 days last summer. As someone committed to getting the transport systems in our urban areas working well I was inspired by the BBC documentary ‘Requiem for Detroit’ to see the city which was both the birthplace of mass car ownership and which had been virtually destroyed by the same industry. I was able to see a city that can tell us a lot about what was wrong more generally and which has messages for us back in the Europe.

I found a cycling friendly city with lots of open space, but soon after we got they I started noticing that this bankrupt city was installing dropped-kerbs at every junction including for ones where there were no occupied buildings and no evidence of any foot traffic such as this one.

Brand new dropped kerb – grass gowing out of the pavement

And this one. It is however a complete co-incidence that the unoccupied building in this next photo used to house the ‘State of Michigan, Dept of Management and Budget, Motor Transport Division’ which I guess was in charge of using money wisely! Incidentally, the building is on Rosa Parks Boulevard which is named after Rosa Parks who was later described as “the first lady of civil rights”, and “the mother of the freedom movement” after she refused to go along with the laws in the South that said that a black person had to give up their seat on a bus if a white person wanted to sit down. She lived in Detroit in her later life and is someone who should be an inspiration to everyone who wants the bring about change, including getting cars off pavements!

The ‘Dept of Management and Budget Control’. Closed, but enjoying a brand new dropped-kerb

Why? Well the Disability Discrimination Act in the USA requires urban areas to install dropped kerbs and I was told by a local that the city had been sued for not implementing them. Given that the official boundary of the city was still the same as it had been in the 1930s, the city had to install them everywhere, including places where no one lived anymore. Another person pointed out that the previous mayor was in jail for corruption and perjury having previously been ‘riding around in luxury as city decays‘. I have had no suggestion that these dropped kerbs were part of any corruption though. A combination of well intentioned but unhelpful legislation, poor decision making and cronyism does occur to some degree everywhere however – in the UK we can also spend money on some pretty odd things as has been beautifully highlighted by the Warrington Cycle Campaign’s ‘Facility of the month awards’. Incidentally, Detroit is about to shrink its boundaries as the state halves its road budget due to reducing icome from their ‘gas tax’.

I am pleased to say that we also found a great city though which is full of optimism with younger people coming back with ideas for the future with an impressive Critical Mass ride each month. Both of these Critical Mass videos are worth watching. They present a view of huge empty space in the city, its vibrancy and a glimpse of what is starting to take place in the spaces vacated by all the cars and why creative pioneers are moving back into the city in what has become known as ‘reverse white flight‘.

However… this is still ‘Motown’ and Detroit hosts the North American International Auto Show this week with ‘car dealers rejoicing as optimism returns to motown’.

So there you have it – messages for all of us from Detroit where everything is in the melting pot!

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