[Closed] Residents' Parking - good/bad idea?

What I've never understood is that many residents' parking schemes in town centres are 'Residents only between 9 and 6' or similar. So the spaces stand empty in the day (when people want to come in to town to shop and when the residents are at work), but when they get home they're not guaranteed a spot to park, because folks coming into town for the evening may have nabbed it. Surely it'd be better the other way around?

But, hey ho, I live in the suburbs and have a drive 🙂

Isn't it just another way for them to get additional revenue - charging you for your yearly permit?

no guarantee you will get a permit for your street , immediate vacinity either.

mate of mine up here in aberdeen had a permit for years for his street , renewed did nothing different and was told his permit would only let him park in streets about 15 mins walk from his house , not an issue unless you like to say - use your car to go shopping , or away with your bike .... cant get near the house to load up !

It seems that the proposal is that one car = free, and visitor (and presumably additional cars) are chagreable.

We must remember Manchester CC is Labour controlled, so unlikely to be a transparent pricing structure....

TBH, it doesn't both mer particularly. There is a parking issue, and I'm not sure hopw they'll make it go away. Largely it seems it is derived from the community hospital (or whatever TF they're called at the moment), where workers and patients routinely avoid paying for parking by using neighbouring streets. Strikes me as being a sledgehammer/nut situation.

The trouble with them is that even if your area doesn't have a parking problem now, residents parking nearby can push non-permit parkers out and fill up your street instead. Then you demand residents parking and the problem gets pushed on to someone else.

That said, I've lived in areas with residents permits for years and am pretty used to it now - currently a necessary evil as I live close to the Arsenal ground and the streets would fill up with fans' cars otherwise. Street is usually half empty but you do end up paying for both your permit and a load of visitors ones too. And it's a pain when you move or change cars.

trail_rat - hadn't considered that. How odd to impose such silliness..!

simon_g - this is what I fear. Currently, the issue does not affect me massively (relatively underpopulated street right now (low rental occupancy on the shared houses in the street), so fewer cars), but the nearby problem will just create a ripple effect where the current overload of cars will have to spill somewhere else.

The residents will complain about the cost, the shop keepers will complain about the drop in custom, the mosque traffic will call it discrimination, and the council will "look the other way" at all the Hospital workers still parking in the streets because of union influence, and the council will forget to add to the budget the cost of providing the funding necessary to police the scheme.

This being England, every-one will moan like hell when it's taken away again...

nickc - I might just copy and paste that into my response to the council. 🙂

nickc - sublime.

When I lived in London it was brought in and there was no difference in ease of parking - just had to pay each year. I lived no where near shops/tube so no reason other than to raise cash as far as I could see.

A lot of the schemes in Newcastle restrict parking from 6am through to 10pm. I think it's about £20 per permit which covers the admin. You can get three, 2 permanent and one guest. Still doesn't guarantee you can park outside your house. But as I'm moving to very near a shopping street I think I'll be in favour.

Is parking regularly a problem? If not then there's no need to do anything

mastiles_fanylion - Member
Isn't it just another way for them to get additional revenue - charging you for your yearly permit?

i'm not sure i looked at the roads budget for sheffield to try to understand why so little money was allocated to ped' crossings and was surprised to find that the revenue no where near covers the cost
(for those interested Sheffield spends 4x as much on resident parking schemes as it does on pedestrian crossings)

I lived in a CPZ in my flat in London, it was right near the tube and it definitely worked. I live just outside a newly formed one now and it means parking is worse by us, as we are still near enough to the tube (zone 3) to park and walk, about 400m, so it is crammed with commuters and people getting free parking for heathrow. So they are good if you are in them and bad if you are just outside them IME

Problem is people who pay for a permit expect to park outside their window, and dont like walking,then you have tradesmen ,like me who will not work in residents parking areas without a permit,some councils,issue a permit for the reg number of the car, and others per address,sometimes you have an empty street, and as soon as you park there the local jobsworth invites the warden,trained by the SAS in stealth and tracking capabilities to silently sneek up on your van and check that you have a permit,road tax,are parked close to the kerb,within the white box lines and anyhing else he /she can find to give you a ticket,then disapears off after taking the time to take a picture of your vehicle and the tax disc.

Check out www.nicevanparkingticket.com

Flippin' 'eck! This is like being back in the office. For my sins, I'm one of the unmentionables who investigates the feasibility and if necessary, designs these things. Obviously, what I'm about to tell you only applies to the authority I work for but hopefully, it will give you an idea.

First, a few home truths about kerb side parking. There is no provision legally for people to leave their vehicles at the kerb side unless there is a marked bay which has been made by a legal order process. The reality is, that lots of people have cars and lots of people kerb park them. However, this is something that it tolerated rather than a legal right. Also, the bit of public highway outside your house is just that, public highway. Everyone has equal right to park there in that no one has any right. The purpose of public highway is for the passing and repassing of traffic. The simple solution would be, if you don't have a drive/garage, you can't have a car. However, no one would ever get voted back in with policies like that so everyone is afraid to say it. The thing is, people think they have a right to car ownership which they actually don't. I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest here, just give a bit of background.

Where I am, we have certain criteria that much be met before we'll look at a scheme. No more than 50% of houses can have private parking. The problem must be cause by non residential traffic and there must be adequate kerb space to resolve the issue. For example, I once had a request from a 400 dwelling tower block with a road side space of about 25 metres (4 or 5 cars) permits or not, there was never going to be enough space and the problem was residents anyway.

The reason lots of schemes run during the working week/day is two fold. One, it stops commuter parking, which is he biggest issue and two, it's about enforcement. Authorities who run such schemes normally do so under decriminalised enforcement, ie, civil enforcement officers, no police/traffic wardens doing it. Therefore, what's the point in imposing restrictions late at night or on Sundays when it's not financially viable to enforce?

When we design a scheme, we will issue two residents permits and one visitors permit (at no charge) but that's your lot. It doesn't mean you'll get a parting space, it doesn't mean you can park outside your house. It does mean you can park within the controlled area without getting a PCN (penalty charge notice).

As to whether you should vote yes or no, you need to ask yourself a few honest questions.

Does the number of permits they're offering suit your needs?
Is there a parking issue during the operating times of the proposed scheme?
Now here's the crunch, is the problem caused by residents or non residents? If it's caused by residents, a RPS will achieve nothing (depending n how many permits are issued)

I surveyed one recently and was impressed that the residents had the good sense to realise that most of the problem was cause because most houses had at least two cars each.

I've never known a permit be issued for a different street though. You might find several streets in a single scheme ad you can park anywhere in that scheme. If there's a scheme on your frontage, you'll get a permit for that scheme.

Hope that helps.

It might be £20 this year, but it'll be £?? next...

Spot on advice from Onzadog.

I live in the Borough of Richmond in London, we have controlled parking in our street and probably needed it because of commuters etc, I did not live there when it was introduced. Richmond's CPZ are famous - why? Because you are charged to park according to your car's emissions, this doesn't effect me because I drive an old car. However, the council that introduced this wonderful green policy are LibDems. Surprisingly the wards that returned LibDems don't have CPZs. The ones that didn't seem to. Call me a sceptic or even a cynic but it looks like a tax grab from people who don't vote for you. Oh and the people with really (ob)noxious car have drives.

tom, when we lived on central rd (just round the corner from where you are) we had a residents' only car park at the rear of the house our flat was in. if i didn't get the car into it by about 6pm friday-sunday, i could forget about parking within about 200m of home. this was 7 years ago; it's loads busier round there now too.
so i reckon it probably needs a permit type deal.

Here is Nackney, just off main road with continuous shops, restaurants and clubs it is essential - best £80 I spend every year. On sundays when its not working its hard to my park in my own road which when unloading muddy bikes and stuff is a bit tedious.

I expect that even in much richer areas where car ownership is much higher and parking in your own street is a bit of a rarity even with permits it is still good to have permits because it still helps reduce demand by keeping out non locals but clearly there is only so much space so as car ownership rises parking gets harder for everyone. Luckily, here in Hackney car ownership is relatively low.

It has pro's and con's. I work in Pompey and that area has currently undergone three phases of parking permits. The first two phases opted for as they could never get parking outside their houses as commuters and shoppers were using them so it's good for them actually parking outside their houses rather than one or two roads away. The third phase opted against and now their roads are rammed with commuters and they are now gettign very angry. The commuters may suffer in the future if that third phase decide to go onto permits because in less local workers have their own dedicated parking they aren't going have any parking as they can only get permits on their road and all those roads have been sneakily changed to pay and displays and the council won't issue permits for those roads as they will lose revenue. So eventually the council may push some businesses out.

I think you need to think of all the implications on yourself and others but potentially if you own your house and come to sell and visitors can't get parking that may be a put off. I don't know what your area is like though.

Onzadog... if you have any advice for my situation that would be greatly appreciated.