Gateshead Council in Parking Restriction Madness

So I work in a Serviced Office building in Gateshead. It’s an old 60’s style tower block, 8 storeys high, holding numerous businesses.

It only has parking below it for around 30 cars, which isn’t nearly enough especially since many of the businesses run adult training courses with large numbers of clients. But that’s okay, cos it’s on a nearly empty business park, opposite some wasteground and a bus garage – so there is plenty of parking on the road.

Well at least there was…

The other week the council came along and painted new double yellow lines and parking bays as shown here:

yellow = double yellows, red = marked parking bay, blue dot = my office

Yes, despite the fact that these are all nice wide dead-end streets that only actually run to our office building and the empty building next to it, it is apparently vital they have parking restrictions.

The remaining marked parking bays are no help. Each one is at least twice the size of a car, thus further reducing the available parking.

The for their coup d’état they put up signs on the bay saying “Maximum Parking 2hrs”!

No one here asked for this. It seems likely that all the businesses here will suffer. I imagine many will be tempted to move to different premises, losing clients for the company running the offices.

Can some explain WTF is going on here??

Did the council just have a surplus of yellow paint to use up and decided to use it to destroy a successful local business in an already deprived area?

Here’s the area on Google Maps if you’re interested enough to walk about in Street View.

http://g.co/maps/j8pmm

using council budget up at year end to ensure they get the same next year.

Yep, either they have a certain quota of yellow lines to paint before the end of the tax year, or there is a sinister plot to bankrupt these businesses so the land can be bought up by shadowy developers who have discovered oil/uranium/gold under the buildings (in which case I probably need to call Steven Seagal).

or ride to work

Do people park there and walk into the town centre?

or ride to work

😀 I do ride to work once a week. Can’t do much more than that sadly, cos I need to be available to pick up the wee one from nursery.

But there are umpteen businesses in this block. They can’t really say to their clients/customers “Yeah there is no parking at our office any more, so you’ll need to get the bus then walk”

Instead they’ll just move to different premises, possibly taking jobs out the local area and harming the other companies that run and service the offices.

Black paint?

Do people park there and walk into the town centre?

Some might. That dead end on the left has a pedestrian/bike underpass that leads into Gateshead “town centre”, but it’s not exactly a shopping mecca, take a look: http://g.co/maps/3ntd8 – it probably needs all the help it can get too.

why not ask the council?

Is it defintely the council who’s marked them? Being a trading estate it could be privately owned land. The landlords could have done it.

Either way if you want to check, go to the Council offices and ask to see the Traffic Regulation Orders for the streets in question. If the council has painted the lines but there are no orders in place in relation to the markings, then they are totally unenforceable.

Or contact them here
Parking Services
Gateshead Council
Civic Centre
Regent Street
Gateshead
NE8 1HH

Tel: 0191 433 3155
Minicom: 0191 478 1826
Email: parkingandregulation@gateshead.gov.uk

Also if it was the Council they would have placed notices (like the planning permission types ones) on lampposts on the streets in question for a period of 21 days prior to the Traffic Regulation order taking effect.

or send in a FOIA request for all the information held by the council in releation to the decision to paint the lines.

Is it defintely the council who’s marked them? Being a trading estate it could be privately owned land. The landlords could have done it.

Nah that bit is all public land AFAIK.

The company running this building is fuming and have been trying to get hold of the guy responsible at the council, who has been mysteriously unavailable so far.

Apparently the council initially said they were only going to repaint the few existing lines, but most of these lines are new, as are the parking bays and signs.

Interesting point about the Traffic Regulation Orders. I don’t recall seeing anything posted on lampposts.

If you’ve not had problems with parking being oversubscribed – i.e. complaints from local businesses because their customers can’t visit because commuters are blocking the spaces all day (which would explain the 2hr limit, but doesn’t explain all the yellow lines) – then I’d put money on there being a planned price hike for paid parking somewhere near by and they’re closing off the options for free parking so the hike doesn’t result in a loss of revenue.

Maybe of course the business could use their own land to conduct their business not rely on public land? 😉 why is there inadequate parking for the businesses? My guess would be development is planned or there has been complaints

I’d put money on there being a planned price hike for paid parking somewhere near by and they’re closing off the options for free parking so the hike doesn’t result in a loss of revenue.

Hmmm.. possible – but it’s not exactly an affluent area. Local businesses in the town centre include the courthouse, police, charities, pubs, bookies, homeless shelter, junkie rehab… not the kind of folk who’ll pay £5 to park all day 😕

Maybe of course the business could use their own land to conduct their business not rely on public land?

Well yeah but it is a pretty old office block, not built with adequate parking by modern standards. Take a look at Street View.

My guess would be development is planned or there has been complaints

Plenty of waste ground around so I guess development is possible, but wouldn’t you start building something before enforcing restrictions on everything nearby?

Not sure who would complain. There is nothing else here. The roads are all dead ends and serve three office blocks, one of which is derelict, a bus garage and the wasteground where an old factory once stood.

Of course now everyone will be forced to park in nearby residential streets instead – so there will be complaints from that.

Let us know if / when you find out will you?

Contact the local paper if the council keep blanking you.

This is classic fodder for them.

You might even get yr photo taken looking grumpy next to the lines in question.

Something similar is happening in my county. The pricing of council car parks has gone up. Completely separately there are new yellow lines on roads that never had restrictions.

They’ll probably try to blame it on Europe. I blame Dave.

Get on to the local rag, they love this kind of stuff 🙂

Ultimately it’s not my fight – I just rent a one-desk office here – but I will pass on the various suggestions to the company running the building. Thanks.

I’m also going to suggest they send a formal letter of complaint signed by all the companies in the building as everyone here is mightily narked and will get more so after a couple of visits from the traffic wardens.

You might even get yr photo taken looking grumpy next to the lines in question.

Oooh I could appear in Angry people in local newspapers [/url] 😀

double whammy

Maybe it’s because the local youths from Felling are coming along and taking all the nice shiny alloy wheels?

Plenty of waste ground around so I guess development is possible, but wouldn’t you start building something before enforcing restrictions on everything nearby?

No, you’d restrict it first, two reasons – one it makes organising the building work easier and 2 it means you can do it this financial year instead of next when the planned development is and maintain your budget for next year. Why not get the building owner to buy some of the waste land and turn it into a car park?

Oooh I could appear in Angry people in local newspapers

Haha, I know him that does that blog through work.

Why not get the building owner to buy some of the waste land and turn it into a car park?

I suspect they don’t have the money for that kind of development. This place is aimed at companies who need very cheap office space. Hence the rather bleak location.

maccruiskeen’s video is scarily accurate. 🙂

As Neninja said, there should have been a TRO posted and advertised, that would have given the local tennants and landowners the opportunity to object.

Commiserations at having to work there, BTW. I’ll wave from across the river.

I’ll wave from across the river.

*looks out his only window at the concrete walls of the empty office building next door*

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll see you 🙁

Commiserations at having to work there

If you’re offering anything better then my email is in my profile 😀
(Senior Software Engineer, 15 years experience)

Round our way the council paints yellow lines whenever it spots that people tend to park in a particular street during the day. It makes no difference that there is plenty of room, It just seems to offend them, I don’t know why.

Yep.

Thing is if you look at the Street View there are at least 30 cars parked in the main street alone. Probably at least another 30 on the side streets.

So that’s 60 odd cars that were all parked legally and safely on quiet dead-end industrial estate roads, not bothering anyone, that now have to find somewhere else to park. Probably on residential streets.

It’s pretty much the opposite to what they should be encouraging.

its all about increasing parking ticket revenue…

see toys above and check out who own the local pay parking facilities

In your shoes I’d be tempted to see if any council building had associated parking and I’d start challenging that and also inquiring (under FOI act) how much they were paying and asking questions about ‘benefits in kind’ etc etc

*Basingrad put town centre parking charges up about 25% a while ago (ie in the recession) AND added lots of residents only parking near the town centre, to add insult to injury I found out that it costs the same a year for a ‘resident parking permit’ (for an effectively ‘personal’ space ) as it does for somebody who just works there to park for 1 week…….

Slight Update: spoke to the company running the building and they confirmed that it was definitely the council that put in the new restrictions, not private landlords. They also said they had not seen an official Traffic Regulation Order and no one saw anything posted on lamposts.

They are still trying to get hold of their man at the council to discuss it properly as they’ve already had multiple complaints from the businesses in their building.

I suggested the next step should be an open letter to the council signed by the various businesses here.

Oh… and there doesn’t seem to be any paid parking nearby, so unless they are planning to build some then I don’t think that is the motivation.

Do people park there and walk into the town centre?

You’ve never been to Gateshead have you?

😆 @warton.

Do people abandon stolen cars there and stumble into the town centre for a score?

FTFY.

The for their coup d’état they put up signs on the bay saying “Maximum Parking 2hrs”!

😀 Is there no ‘grass’ around either?