Need advice on parking issues at home

Androgen

I live in a mid-terraced house, the parking is awful at the best of times, the council said (around 5 years ago now) that there's nothing they will do about it, they also don't offer blue badge bays for badge holders...

All (3) people in my house are disabled with limited mobility, we have a motability car but more often than not, there are peoples work vans etc. parked outside our house, and we're forced to park down the street (about 100m, and we live at the top of a hill) between 2 driveways, the owners of which are getting more and more unpleasant about it because we overlap their drives (by less than 20cm, never enough to block anyone in) and one of them has already keyed our car twice (police reports have been filed)
The problem is that there's nowhere else for us to park, other than driving 500m away, which is too far to walk, we're planning to try and put a sign in front asking people not to park there, but we're expecting it to be ignored, are there any other options at all?

We are also saving as much money as possible to move out of here, but it's not going to be any time soon unfortunately

Cher_Alumni

Hi @Androgen How are you and your family today?

I'm sorry to hear about the parking difficulties you're having. It must be so frustrating, particularly coming across unpleasant behaviour from other neighbours. Good on you for reporting the keying of your car to the police.

I wonder, as it's been 5 years since you last enquired whether you could revisit discussing this with your local authority to explain the problem, how it's impacting your lives and see whether they budge in their position. Out of interest, and only if you feel comfortable sharing, what is your local authority? I'm wondering whether we could research alternative solutions based on that information. 

I know locally parking is an issue in my area and some people put cones outside their house, whilst others have a sign similar to what you describe, which seems pretty effective. However, it's not a concrete solution and wholly reliable on drivers' agendas! 

I hope we can get our heads together and think of an answer for you, good luck with the moving house saving. Each bit is another step closer.

Binky1234

You could go and see your local MP, maybe a call from them will get the council to change their mind about disabled parking bay at the front of your house.

Good luck with your house move when it comes 👍

Cartini

Difficult one this.

Parking on a property, whether by 20cm or 2cm, is trespassing - and some people can be incredibly (verging on the point of aggressively) defensive of their property.  And I`m not condoning keying activities.

People who pay their Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax) are entitled to park on any road without parking restrictions, even if they park outside your house.

My council will put a disabled bay on the road for £250 (I think, it`s been a while since I looked), but there are caveats attached.  However, this parking bay is not legally enforceable, so anyone could still park there.

Having said what I`ve said, I do hope you find a solution to your problem; preferably one where you have a disabled bay outside your home.

Androgen

Cher_Scope said:

Hi @Androgen How are you and your family today?

I'm sorry to hear about the parking difficulties you're having. It must be so frustrating, particularly coming across unpleasant behaviour from other neighbours. Good on you for reporting the keying of your car to the police.

I wonder, as it's been 5 years since you last enquired whether you could revisit discussing this with your local authority to explain the problem, how it's impacting your lives and see whether they budge in their position. Out of interest, and only if you feel comfortable sharing, what is your local authority? I'm wondering whether we could research alternative solutions based on that information. 

I know locally parking is an issue in my area and some people put cones outside their house, whilst others have a sign similar to what you describe, which seems pretty effective. However, it's not a concrete solution and wholly reliable on drivers' agendas! 

I hope we can get our heads together and think of an answer for you, good luck with the moving house saving. Each bit is another step closer.

Hi!
Stress levels are... high, but we're all holding out for now, we've made a few calls today and have been given an email for the councils traffic management team, still not sure if that's the right place, but we're going to try anyway!

We've lived here for almost 7 years now, but in the last 6 months we've gone from having elderly/no neighbours (with no cars) to new neighbours on both sides with multiple cars and work vans, so it's made the parking situation so much worse (in addition to other drama/issues they're causing!) 
We live under Nottingham City Council, I don't think they really offer anything, last time they just said they wouldn't do anything and we'd all have to build driveways if we had an issue, but since we're renting we can't do that (and don't have that kind of money anyway)

We're going to try with the sign, I can't imagine our neighbours would actually care though, and I'm almost certain they'd just run over or move any cones left in the street! 

Androgen

Binky1234 said:

You could go and see your local MP, maybe a call from them will get the council to change their mind about disabled parking bay at the front of your house.

Good luck with your house move when it comes 👍

I'll have to look into this, thanks!

Androgen

Cartini said:

Difficult one this.

Parking on a property, whether by 20cm or 2cm, is trespassing - and some people can be incredibly (verging on the point of aggressively) defensive of their property.  And I`m not condoning keying activities.

People who pay their Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax) are entitled to park on any road without parking restrictions, even if they park outside your house.

My council will put a disabled bay on the road for £250 (I think, it`s been a while since I looked), but there are caveats attached.  However, this parking bay is not legally enforceable, so anyone could still park there.

Having said what I`ve said, I do hope you find a solution to your problem; preferably one where you have a disabled bay outside your home.

Obviously we don't want to park there, it's a last resort when we have no other choice, the tiny bit we do overlap (on the road, not actually on her property) is in front of a wall, she also has a double driveway and only one car, so we aren't obstructing her access at all

I've asked about disabled bays online previously, and was met with a whole load of lovely responses about how entitled/greedy I am for trying to "claim public roads as private property" etc. so I'm aware that I can't stop anyone parking there, and haven't actually tried, since I know there's nothing I can do about it, but having a bay would look a bit more official and may improve the chances that people won't park there, even if they are unregulated... There is already a disabled bay on our street, but it belongs to a fellow disabled neighbour, and they've since built a drive there anyway... 

Androgen

woodbine said:

Don't please take this the wrong way I'm not trying to be unpleasant but you say 500m is too far to walk, that being the case when you go out in the car what happens if you have to walk from the car park and maybe round a store?
I appreciate parkings a pain, too many cars on the roads that weren't built for 33 million cars.
I would imagine if they are bad enough to "key" your car they would ignore any signs, what about putting cones there?

I have a blue badge and a manual wheelchair but I live at the top of a pretty steep hill, and I have a joint condition that affects my arms too, my shoulders dislocate pretty easily and it's pretty much impossible to propel up that hill, probably worse than walking, actually, but I can't walk that far, especially uphill (and the ground is incredibly uneven)

Cartini

Androgen said:

Cartini said:

Difficult one this.

Parking on a property, whether by 20cm or 2cm, is trespassing - and some people can be incredibly (verging on the point of aggressively) defensive of their property.  And I`m not condoning keying activities.

People who pay their Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax) are entitled to park on any road without parking restrictions, even if they park outside your house.

My council will put a disabled bay on the road for £250 (I think, it`s been a while since I looked), but there are caveats attached.  However, this parking bay is not legally enforceable, so anyone could still park there.

Having said what I`ve said, I do hope you find a solution to your problem; preferably one where you have a disabled bay outside your home.

Obviously we don't want to park there, it's a last resort when we have no other choice, the tiny bit we do overlap (on the road, not actually on her property) is in front of a wall, she also has a double driveway and only one car, so we aren't obstructing her access at all

I've asked about disabled bays online previously, and was met with a whole load of lovely responses about how entitled/greedy I am for trying to "claim public roads as private property" etc. so I'm aware that I can't stop anyone parking there, and haven't actually tried, since I know there's nothing I can do about it, but having a bay would look a bit more official and may improve the chances that people won't park there, even if they are unregulated... There is already a disabled bay on our street, but it belongs to a fellow disabled neighbour, and they've since built a drive there anyway... 

Those responses were disgusting; their comments show their ignorance around the use of a disabled bay.

That`s interesting about the drive in that one of the caveats my council stipulates is there must be no other off road parking available.  How that works retrospectively I couldn`t say (if it works for the Nottingham council at all).

Androgen

@Cartini
It seems Nottingham council won't have anything to do with disabled bays (including removing them) - they told us they're only allowed to use their funds to benefit the whole community and not individuals, so they can't fund residential disabled bays 

Cartini

Androgen said:

@Cartini
It seems Nottingham council won't have anything to do with disabled bays (including removing them) - they told us they're only allowed to use their funds to benefit the whole community and not individuals, so they can't fund residential disabled bays 

A "caring" council then.

Androgen

Cartini said:

Androgen said:

@Cartini
It seems Nottingham council won't have anything to do with disabled bays (including removing them) - they told us they're only allowed to use their funds to benefit the whole community and not individuals, so they can't fund residential disabled bays 

A "caring" council then.

It would seem so... They've told us to try and access the disabled grant fund or something, but we don't own the house so I don't think we're allowed to make big changed like adding a driveway or something, and also don't know if we'd then be able to access it in future for a house we do own if we have already been given funding from it!