Residents are being encouraged to have their say on pavement parking as part of a Government consultation.
Local councillors increasingly receive complaints from residents who find themselves having to walk in the road due to vehicles being parked on the footpath unnecessarily. This is a particular problem for anyone pushing a pram or buggy, for wheelchair users and for people who are blind or partially sighted.
The Government consultation on pavement parking is open until 22 November, and details can be found HERE
In summary, the Government wants to gauge the degree of support for ongoing work to improve the Traffic Regulation Order process as a means to tackle pavement parking where it is a problem. It is also inviting views on alternative approaches, with two specific options outlined. These are:
- legislative change to allow local authorities with civil parking enforcement (CPE) powers to enforce against ‘unnecessary obstruction of the pavement’, or;
- legislative change to introduce a London-style pavement parking prohibition throughout England.
The Government is also inviting any alternative proposals for managing pavement parking.
There are existing statutes and regulations which allow proceedings to be brought by the Police under criminal law for situations where parking on the pavement, in such a way as to cause obstruction, is deemed to be avoidable. These include section 137 of the Highways Act 1980, as amended; for wilfully obstructing the free passage along a highway. Local authorities are currently unable to enforce against obstruction using their civil parking enforcement powers.
Would love to see no parking on pavements as it is becoming a big issue, particularly with people who cannot be bothered to park in their driveways!
Delivery vans seem to think it’s their given right and where we live they pull on to our grassed area leaving tyre Mark’s!
Enforcing non-parking restrictions would be difficult as who would enforce it? Certainly not the police as we have seen them drive past offending vehicles where people have had to walk into the road to circumvent vehicles!
Many people have drives but leave cars on pavements as too lazy to park them!
Double yellows are ignored too!
Automatic fines are the answer that means employing more parking rangers. However NOT JUST FOR THE INNER CITY!
Footpaths and verges do.not have strong enough foundations to support the weight of vehicles. They are not designed or intended for vehicles. The indiscriminate parking of said vehicles more often than not causes pedestrians and people with prams and mobility scooters to have to walk on the road, putting themselves in danger. I am a car driver so not biased toward pedestrians.
I’d rather inconvenience a mobility scooter or push chair than an emergency vehicle. Pavement parking is sometimes unavoidable in busy areas, especially for delivery drivers or people working on a property’s drive way.
I can’t believe people are debating this. Pavements are a safe space free from cars we’re people walk push pushchairs wheel chairs stand and chat. Kids run about on them . Roads are where the cars go. Are we really wondering if we should let cars use the pavements as well? I would say obviously not parking tickets should be awarded to vehicles on the pavement.
emergency vehicles been the only ones exempt