to be annoyed at having to pay council £15 to park outside my own house

[southeastastra]

permit used to be free but not they want £15 per year to park my (only) car on the road, which doesn't even belong to them but county council

am livid as out of work at the moment and don't need this extra charge

A complete scam if the road is never actually over parked though!

Plenty of places in Scotland where you don't pay any parking charges whether it be car parks in town or in the road spaces. Down here you can't even park in the countryside without buying a ticket.

Oh, no, don't be embarrassed! It's just depressing that it exists in so many places. I suspect it will get more and more common. The thing is, this would all be fine if there were better public transport, and if people like the OP got to know about this possibility before it happened. It's the transition that is really nasty.

YANBU! It made me froth and fume to have to pay to park outside my house in London. Who gives a monkey's toss who parks there between 8 and 6 when the majority of the residents and their cars were at work?

I wouldn't mind so much now, if it deterred my neighbours and their dope-smoking, swearing-at-their-children mates from parking right outside my house.

Well it is frustrating I know but what else can be done if you want to ensure that you have a parking space and that other non residents are deterred from parking there? If there is a permit scheme in operation that takes time and money to police. I don't know about the residents in your street but we were asked whether we wanted to have permit parking some years ago and we all agreed that we did. Bearing in mind how close we live to the city it is the only way of ensuring that we can park near our own house.

£15 per year is nothing compared to the price of our permit! I pay every 6 months and I think I am right in thinking it is £80!

Yes you are out of work but you are being asked for 30p a week. If you get livid over that then how do you react when something happens that actually matters?

We have to pay £25 for the first car, can't remember now for cars 2 & 3, as well as for visitors. I'm a bit miffed that residents' permits aren't free however we are town centre and I remember how bad it was to get in/out the road when all and sundry parked there for free before. We fortunately have a driveway but put our car on the road when we have visitors as its a pain to mess around with the right number of hours and we are limited on how many visitor vouchers we can buy in a year.

But the question is, who actually owns the road? The council apparently. But what is a council? An organisation which manges public resources held in trust for the benefit of the public. Therefore the council are custodians of land which belongs collectively to residents, and they are then selling the right to park on said land back to the very people who actually own it. Plus, they are then excluding other people who also collectively own it from parking there if they don't live in the vicinity. I think it is madness, and wonder where all the residents who request parking restrictions in their areas actually park when they go to visit another area? Probably right outside somebody else's house. Where will it end, large areas of the UK being permit parking only??

YANBU. Street parking should already be covered by our taxes in places where it always has been before.

Ours is just £32 in London, can never get a space though.

I can see why you would be pissed off when it was free before, but really £15 per year is a bargain. And actually nothing in the scheme of things - just over 4p a day in fact!

parking should already be covered by our taxes in places where it always has been before

Should it though? I don't own a car anymore and don't see why, as a non car user I should pay for a permit scheme. It only seems fair that those derive the benefit from having designated parking should pay the cost.

I wish I had the option of paying to park outside my own house - stupid permit parking covers my road but not my actual property which means my neighbours can park outside my house but I can't.

£23 pounds a year here and they've put council tax up.

No designated parking either, you are just allocated a zone.

It is £40 here and no option for visitor permits. Not all roads need them, but when I go to visit Dsis I have to park a good 5 min walk away, not good if it is raining.

And if you need a permit to park around here, you can only use it in the street where you live.

"It only seems fair that those derive the benefit from having designated parking should pay the cost."

So would you also say that car users shouldn't pay any taxes towards public transport? We all pay taxes towards things we may not personally use much or at all, whether it's healthcare, benefits, particular sports facilities, libraries, prisons, religion, social housing, universities, duck houses or whatever else.

Yes but the difference is that we are free to use the library, sports centre etc. should we wish to. We may chose not to do so, but we all benefit from having a range of civic amenities to pick from. We can all access the NHS and state education as and when the need arises. We benefit from the university-educated nurses, doctors and teachers.

However we cannot chose to park a car in the op's street and the only person who derives any direct benefit are the op and her neighours.

Therefore they should contribute to the cost of a scheme that benefits them and only them.

I think you're referring to when the permit was free ComposHat so I kind of see what you mean. However I was referring to when anyone could park on any street for free :)

Ahh I see.

Every public library I've ever registered with required proof of address, compo.

Yes, and your point is?

My parents are city dwellers. The last time we spoke of parking charges was about 2 years ago when they paid over £80 PA for their own car and extra for visitors'. It's one of the downsides of living in a place with amenities which others might like to access, like the local train station for commuting. We pay nothing to park where we live but then again we live in a very quiet area without amenities nearby. You're getting off lightly!

Well, doesn't requiring proof of address mean that access to the public library is restricted by where you live ... in exactly the same way the OP's permit space is restricted by where she lives?

I get what you're saying with other examples but I didn't follow that one as they both seem similar to me.