AIBU to park in this street?

[ashmts]

Parking thread. I work in a hospital in a residential area of a large town. Parking is terrible, the main car park is for visitors only and has a limit of 4 hours. There are smaller car parks for people with permits (only staff who work between sites or are on call) or one car park for all staff with about 30 spaces which are full well before I start work.

The only option is to park in one of the streets nearby. For the past couple of months I've been parking in a cul de sac which has 6 spaces in the middle for cars. Every house also has a driveway and obviously by parking in the space I never block anyone's. Today I left work to find a note on my windscreen from a resident saying the spaces are for the use of residents only, not staff of the hospital.

So, what do I do? I do understand it would be annoying but it's a public road and I need to park somewhere. Before I could drive I had to get two trains and a bus to and from work (an hour and a half each way) so I'm not going to stop driving to work.

• land registry deeds. Online. £3 a pop I think. Very useful.

Oh you could do that OP, then you'd know for sure. Just look up the land registry details for one of the houses very close (around) those parking spaces.

Cheese you obviously know your own road and I don't! But there's a cul-de-sac near me, public road, maintained by the council, and just outside the limits of a CPZ and near the Tube station, and while I can understand that the residents get pissed off about having to manoeuvre their way off their drives and out of the narrow mouth of their road, they have no damned business^ trying to tell people that they can't park by the kerb as long as the drives are not quite blocked - and they do, they tried it on a visitor (when my drive was full with our car and another visitor's car) and have a bit of a reputation locally for it.

If there are no signs saying otherwise then you can park. They're just trying their luck with the windscreen note.

Op, can't you ask colleagues where they park?

I also work in a hospital, and do 13.5hr shifts, no way am I adding to that by using public transport on the days I have my car available! I get the bus when I really have to, but it makes a very long day even longer!

I park a fair walk away though, its fairly well lit so I don't mind the walk. Sometimes in the summer I cycle there. I asked around colleagues to figure out the best place to park. Permits here for staff parking are limited, and there's a two year wait to get one :-/ I have found a street that just has housing on one side and a really wide pavement on the other side, so I park up the pavement with lots of others. Doesn't seem to have annoyed anyone yet. I wouldn't park somewhere where I knew I was annoying people to be honest.

Here, can't do proper links sorry:

www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

Agree Andrew.

Whilst that would piss me off, I'd have no right to gripe.

It's just the specific set up the OP describes isn't people parking 'around' a cul-de-sac specific parking spaces within one would very usually indicate private parking. Most people would understand that.

Whilst I sympathise with residents having people parking outside their houses all the time they should expect it living near a hospital. Our local hospital had this issue so people used to park on the surrounding streets but now it's mostly double yellow lines and permit parking as campaigned for by the residents but its not like anyone actually wants to go to the hospital is it? And if you have to go regularly then the costs stack up of parking in the hospital if you can actually find a space!

I live in a cul de sac in a big town centre with no parking restrictions.

We go through phases of town centre workers parking open our street rather than company provided parking which is slightly further away.

When this happens, residents park more unsociably, eg parking on the street rather than their drives, and parking inefficiently with large spaces between cars. This tactic works amazingly well and tides us over for at least six months.

We decided as a street to use this tactic rather than getting parking restrictions, which affects bona fide visitors.

I think when encountering a scarcity of parking, you simply have to pay for parking, use public transport or car pool. Don't expect local residents to be charitable.

Our cul de sac is a public road and people often park on the kerb which doesn't bother me, unless their parking is terrible. There are lots of unmarked unsigned parking bays though which belong to each house - we have 2 and we definitely own them, they are on our deeds. Very occasionally someone parks there and it is irritating although I tend not to mind too much if it's just the odd person popping in (sometimes plumbers etc use them and I don't really mind that) but had to leave a note once when someone was parking there regularly and DH was unable to park his car. Difficult to tell from what Op is describing whether it's that or just a public space. I put a sign up once but it vanished and I couldn't be bothered to do it again.

FWIW we also live near a hospital and although we get lots of annoying parking on the road nearest the hospital, I knew that was going to be a problem when we bought the house! We've benefitted from living so near but there are downsides - a bit like living very near a school I guess.

I live near a school, parking is always crap find here. I might swear to myself when I'm trying to find a space, but I know that's just the way things are. People get very precious about 'their' parking spaces.

cheese I get what you're saying but I think most people would expect there to be signs when a space is a private one. Especially as parking is such a sensitive issue. At best, a lack of sign creates a question in the mind. So I don't agree that most people would automatically think the space as described is a private one.

OP, you need to find out from the council whether it's a public road/space or not.

I live in a cul de sac exactly as described by the op. Lay out sounds identical. Ours is just on street parking. First come first served. Just because it's a cul de sac does not mean that it's residential parking only!

Can't find anything on the land registry deeds, it's Scotland so I had to go to another site and had no results for the postcode.

I can't pay to park, the car park is free but visitor only. Unless I get tickets and don't pay since they can't enforce it but it doesn't feel right.

Colleagues park on other streets nearby which is what I'm going to have to do now. Every so often one of them gets their tyres let down or car keyed so I'm not risking parking in that space again.

Exactly Alma, I don't mind the odd person that doesn't understand, of course. But it is usually a visitor to another house or a workman. Otherwise if someone is trying to take over my space which I own it peeves somewhat.

Storming, I do get what you are saying also! But that fact is, where they are placed often clearly suggests they are not.

Maybe it's a regional thing. Round here it's pretty much understood that spaces like that are are private parking.

Cheeses with no signs why would it be understood? If there's nothing to indicate it's private it's fair game.

OP just park where you've been parking and ignore the note. It's just someone with too much time on their hands getting arsey.

I just think if you've driven into a little cul-de-sac and there are a small number of parking bays it's well known they are private.

Clearly this is not the case. However where I live, it's just kind of known... thoughout the whole town/borough.

I wouldn't park in a bay. I would assume marked parking bays are private. We used to live in a cul de sac with marked bays in the middle. They were all owned by the houses surrounding them but none had signs or anything. I certainly wouldn't assume that a marked parking bay was free for anyone to use.

We have the same as TedAndLola. Live in a cul-de-sac. Houses have drives but there are some flats etc and there is a mini car park (probably about 10 spaces) at the end of the car park. Nothing to say that these are for residents only, though I imagine that many of the residents would feel that way.

Not around here - private roads are usually marked with a sign, and if it's not then it's likely to be a public highway.

If the bay is marked then there's a suggestion they're private but if they're not how would anybody be expected to know? That's absurd.

When this happens, residents park more unsociably, eg parking on the street rather than their drives, and parking inefficiently with large spaces between cars

I live in a cul de sac like the one described by the OP and I think this ^^ is pretty twatty TBH. It pisses me off when I have to slalom out of the street but people are well within their rights to park there.

Our cul de sac has private road marked on the sign as it hasn't been adopted by the council. The other two that I've lived in have been adopted - one had drives for each house and the kerb parking was a free for all, the other had bays which were cut into the front gardens (so it was obvious they belonged to each house) and people could park by the kerb where it didn't obstruct the road or parking spaces.
I appreciate it's annoying to have commuters cars parked in areas with inadequate parking but if it's a public highway that's life.

I think when encountering a scarcity of parking, you simply have to pay for parking, use public transport or car pool. Don't expect local residents to be charitable.

It's not to do with being charitable. Everyone has the right to park on a public road whether you like it or not. If they were blocking your drive then you have the right to complain but not because you don't like the nasty common people making the street look untidy.