Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

...to be annoyed at Permit Parking

32 replies

LikeABlackFlameCandleBNQ · 10/10/2011 21:29

My street and those in the vicinity are becoming Permit Holder's Only between 8am and 6pm. It makes sense, as we are in the midst of 2 primary schools and a leisure centre, so the streets can get busy. Urban area, also, so no driveways.

My AIBU relates to the fact that I have to pay for my permit? I could maybe understand if I had more than one car, paying for the extra permit. I also totally understand paying the nominal fee for a book of visitors Day Passes. But I feel quite begrudging about paying £15 for the privelge of parking in a three-street radius of my own home for a year. Especially considering the cost of road tax.

Grrrr....AIBU?

OP posts:

SazZaVoom · 10/10/2011 21:30

You know next year it will be £100?

iMemoo · 10/10/2011 21:32

Sell your car and get the bus.

Skillbo · 10/10/2011 21:33

I think YABU but purely because I live in an area dominated by permit parking but because of some deal my landlord did when my flat was converted, am not entitled to a permit. Therefore, I have to park about 15 minutes walk away from where I live to avoid the very keen traffic wardens.

£15 a year is just over £1 a month which isn't much at all!

But I only say this as I am bitter about my own personal situation and in your shoes would probable be just as annoyed! At least it will guarantee you a spot now - or has that never really been an issue?

AuntiePickleBottom · 10/10/2011 21:34

i really dont get parking permits tbh, as all the signs i ever see it you don't need a permit as long as you don't park for more than 1 hour

Iggly · 10/10/2011 21:35

Skillbo how odd?! Can you email the council or your local councillor to appeal?

BramblyHedge · 10/10/2011 21:35

That is nothing. We pay £60 for our permit and £1 per visitor permit. And as we live in town and the permit doesnt apply on sunday we can never park on sunday. I dont actually have a problem with paying as we they could decide to make it pay and display for increased revenue and then we would never be able to park. We dont own the parking bays on our road so no reason why we should park for free. Permit schemes also require parking wardens and they cost money.

EggyAllenPoe · 10/10/2011 21:37

YANBU.

councils bring in these schemes without resident demand (or without resident majority demand) in order to boost revenue from parking charges. they are in most cases more of an inconvenience for residents than a help.

Northernlurker · 10/10/2011 21:38

Of course you have to pay for your permit. £15 is a steal. I assume it will go up big time in April? You want a scarce resource - a parking space so you PAY for it. You bought a house not a bit of the street.

EggyAllenPoe · 10/10/2011 21:39

brambly ..except that levying such charges in areas that aren't busy isn't done for residents benefit, but as a tax-by-stealth?

Skillbo · 10/10/2011 21:41

Iggly - have tried and tried to no avail sadly... even trying to get visitor permits for my dad who is registered disabled but lives abroad so doesn't have a blue badge were refused..

Ah well, there are worse things to worry about but it is one of those things that really niggles me! Thought the OP might be in the same boat so could have a good ole moan

smalltownshame · 10/10/2011 21:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Iggly · 10/10/2011 21:49

Well I'm in a similar boat - for some insane reason when the house was converted into flats, our flat didn't get a driveway. Our road has yellow lines so cannot park outside - have to park on a different street. The council won't even allow permit parking as every other property has off street. Annoys me, especially as with the weather getting colder, trekking through rain or snow with two DCs in two doesn't appeal much! Although not as far as 15 minutes.

RosiethePriveter · 10/10/2011 21:50

YABU.

Everywhere I have lived in London has had permit parking and it is a godsend for being able to park on my own street. The first flat I lived in didn't have it when I first moved there and it was a nightmare. Regularly having to carry shopping back from car 2/3 streets away. When you think of the admin costs to be able to run and enforce a scheme like this £15 is a steal.

You will probably be thankful for it once it comes and you see how many other people were there taking up spaces.

FrightNight · 10/10/2011 21:56

It's bullshit. We have this and on the face of it £15 looks ok. But multiply it by 3 as we had to for 2 own cars and a visitor permit, then multiply that by the number of houses that fall into the catchment area and it's a nifty way for a council to plug a money hole with minimum admin costs vs a mchuge penalty for being non-compliant.

Our council implemented such a scheme in our town last year under the highly tenuous premis we would be inundated by new commuters to the high speed rail link. If it actually made it easier for me to park near my house I'd pay 4x the amount, but you'll be amazed, amazed I tell you to find it has not

They also issued flimsy arse permits that peel off in hot or cold weather garnering fines for those that have actually paid the stealth tax permit charge.

highriggs · 10/10/2011 21:58

My permit costs £80 per year and is also now linked to car emissions . Just shite . This is for a parked car not for a car which is being driven . Thought that was what road tax was for not a parking permit. We don't have a choice as we don't live in town but suburbs and in a tenement and are surrounded by controlled parking zones. This is the very same council who are spending 1 billion pound on a tram which is years overdue and 500 million over budget . Our council must be the worst in the uk . There wasn't a problem with parking before and it is just a money making exercise for the council .

EggyAllenPoe · 10/10/2011 22:00

it doesn't surprise me that it doesn't make it easier to park. funnily enough residents use parking from 6pm-8am typically whereas non-residents use it 8 am- 6pm.

the residents parking areas near my humble abode are empty of cars all day.

EllaDee · 10/10/2011 22:11

I sort of get what you're saying, but it's worse when there are no permits and you can't park anywhere near your house because people who don't live there use your road for convenient near-town parking.

Do you think they'll make them into normal 24-hour ones soon? It seems a bit odd it is 6pm-8am, as EggyAllen says.

(Just to moan, we pay more than that for permits here and I still end up parking a couple of streets away as it's still crowded out. ).

EllaDee · 10/10/2011 22:13

(Oh and don't get me started on the time I went away for couple of weeks, came back and they'd changed a row of permit spaces to 'one hour only' spaces and I had four bloody tickets even though they'd not bothered to put up any warning they were planning to change teh use of the space. Bastards.)

Andrewofgg · 10/10/2011 22:15

My zone only applies 10 to 11 Monday to Friday to keep out the commuters; other times there are enough spaces. Good method.

BaaBaaHerdwickSheep · 10/10/2011 22:19

£15 is cheap! We pay £80 and it is £5.50/day for a visitors permit. My DM is coming to stay for a couple of weeks when I have DC2 - that's £55!!

I wouldn't mind if so much if it was easier to park - I usually end up 100 yards at least from my house and several times recently the road's been full and I end up on a different street. Nightmare with a toddler and a baby.

SailorVie · 10/10/2011 22:21

Where I live it's £100 for the parking permit, the price is banded according to emissions. There is also a surcharge for diesel cars AND a £50 surcharge on top of the cost of a second permit per household. So the second car permit in the household is £150+. £15 is an absolute bargain. Oh and until Xmas last year we had to pay £200 a year for the congestion charge, just for having a car outside on the street.
Oh and disabled blue badges don't get free parking ANYWHERE in our area, apart from an extra hour's parking on a paid for pay and display bay. Oh and our borough don't do visitor parking permits. At all.
Yep, welcome to Central London.

Original poster

LikeABlackFlameCandleBNQ · 10/10/2011 22:22

I hear what you are all saying, and maybe IABabitU to be narked at the charge. In essense, £15 is nominal when spread over the year.

What is bugging me about it too, is that all of the houses on my terraced street are converted into flats, so for the 60 residences on the street, there are 30 'house fronts', meaning finding a space anyways is nigh on impossible (especially for shiftworkers like me who return home at 11.30pm and have to park a way away). Everyone prefers to be outside their own door, of course, but that's three cars in my instance (I have one, upstairs have two). tbh, usually I'm just happy to be able to park on the street, dont mind where.

If it were 24 hour permit parking, Id pay double but I fail to see how anyone would struggle to park here between, certainly, 10am and 4pm.

OP posts:

MurderBloodstabsandgore · 10/10/2011 22:24

YABU I dream of getting permit parking. I may as well leave my car at work, I can't park any closer to my house anyway....

gruber · 10/10/2011 22:24

Nope, YANBU. We have permit parking, but the first one is free (e.g. If you have 2 cars you get 1 permit then pay £50 if you want a second one, £100 for a 3rd - registered to the house/flat). however, you pay a £17.50 admin charge per permit!!

£15 for your permit is shocking. My gripe is that students anyone can park free for 3 hours so it's impossible to park anywhere nearby in daylight & termtime as they all drive & park. In this case residents permits haven't solved the problem, just creates a new one (daytime parking for free).

lurkerspeaks · 10/10/2011 22:35

Having lived in a busy urban area without controlled parking I would now always choose a property where it applied.

When I moved recently it was on the essential list as was phoning the council to make sure the property wasn't on the 'not allowed a permit' list.

I understand why you are pissed off as it is new but in my experience it will enhance your quality of life. Anyone complaining about parking schemes that were in place when they bought / rented a flat that disadvantage them didn't do enough research before they committed IMO.

Flip

1 2