Tell the Department for Transport about your experience with pavement parking

Tori_Scope

The Department for Transport are running a consultation on pavement parking. 

Pavement parking is already illegal in London, but they're looking to make this illegal across the UK. This would be a really positive step forward, making streets more accessible for lots of disabled people including wheelchair users and people with visual impairments. 

Scope are planning on responding to the consultation, so we'd love to know your views and experiences of pavement parking. Please get in touch if you have anything you'd like to share. Your anonymised comments could even be used in our public consultation response! 

Here is a link to the Department for Transport's brief consultation questionnaire, which you might also like to complete. It will ask you about your experience of pavement parking in your local area, and will assist in deciding future policy for pavement parking enforcement.

roberttaylor570

@Tori_Scope First may I thank you for taking this campaign up on behalf of Scope.

I have already responded on another forum so will not reply again to the DoT request for information.

I would like to share with you my background and experiences concerning this as I have a long history of campaigning on these issues and have also known Councillors who first advocated parking on verges.

I am a Registered Blind person having sight in the left eye only from birth.  I therefore find on pavement parking very frustrating.  I also have arthritis in both feet, knees and hips which slows me down and restricts me in using steps and kerbs.

Living in Gillingham which is a town but in many places is semi rural the roads do not all have pavements or the roads are narrower than many in a large city.  This means that cars and other vehicles park with one side on the pavement to allow other road users and the Emergency Services to use the road.  This leaves the pavement very narrow and there are often wing mirrors sticking out.

I knew a councillor who represented a Dartford Ward who managed to get parkig allowed on grass verges or where there was a concreted area between the road and the path.  This of course is different and does not impede pedestrians, the visually impaired or those using Mobility Scooters.

Before I moved to Medway I lived and worked in London.  I was active in .a Transport and Environmental group then known as Transport 2000.  They are now called Campaign for Better Transport.  I was on two groups one covering South London, Surrey and Kent and the other covered North London and Home Counties.  We managed to get pavement parking banned and a fine of £50 levied on offenders.  I also spent two years as a member of their National Board.

One other thing which needs to be urgently dealt with is parking on dropped Kerbs.  Issue of a parking ticket does not help the Disabled or even those with young children in buggies.  We need to have the law strenghened to enforce immediate towing of these vehicles.

I am sorry this has been rather longer than many posts on the forum but it is important to get all these points over to those who make our laws.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Robert

Tori_Scope

I definitely can't take the credit @roberttaylor570- I got asked to post this by our policy team  

Thank you so much for your valuable contribution! We're very grateful.