Parent and Child Parking

[Faerie87]

After being a FTM for a coming up 7 weeks I have found that in most car parks the parent and child spaces are nearly always full, where as the disabled parking spaces are nearly always empty.

Would it be unreasonable of me to want more parent and child spaces as opposed to disabled as there seems to be a supply and demand issue?

I also think that the amount of spaces is not necessarily the issue. I would never begrudge someone with a disability a space however to park in a disabled bay you need a blue badge. Would it not be easier for parents of children under let’s say 5 be given a similar badge when the child is born in order for them to park in the P&C bays? That way you stop Betty aged 70 and her son Gerald aged 40 parking in the bay stating that they are parent and child! That way more spaces would open up as fewer people would be able to legally park there, similar to the system the have to get a blue badge?

What do you think?

Just for the record I would like to state again, that I don’t begrudge a person with a disability a space, I just feel a better system needs to be in Place for parents and young children as there seems to be more of them.

That winds me up ,i get so annoyed when I see adults making a big show of turning around and gasps of "oooh what's that noise?" When it's bloody obvious it's just a child ticking or similar (sorry if that's the wrong word to use, I use it for my ds when he has one of his facial ticks).

Very good point @Gizzymum.

There needs to be adequate parking for blue badge holders close to the store. If there are usually empty spaces then good, it means there are enough at that store. I have a two year old toddler and I appreciate the P&C spaces as the extra space does make it easier, but more importantly they’re usually linked to a path away from the traffic so are safer. I wish they would do the sensible thing and put the P&C spaces further away from the store

in the Local to by my house the P and C spaces are much closer to the store then disabled ones there is even a row of normal parking spaces closer then the disabled bays I have complained repeatably they just say they need to be further away because BB are being less used (because they are too far away from the door).

Currently there is a paitaition going around now because Tesco are breaking the rules of placement for disabled bays (aka they are not simply allowed to put them were ever)

The main issue is that cars have been getting bigger over time but the physical space provided to park in has not changed in line with that.

A Tesco I go to moved the P&C spaces from the front of the store and has them further away from the entrance making them less attractive to some who would use them unnecessarily.

@Gilead quite. I have a 7 seater people carrier so we can fit 2 electric power chairs, 1 manual chair and a hoist in the boot. Maybe I should swap for a VW Up!

@worridmum yeah Morrison's in Paignton have the p&c spaces closer than B.B. bays so I used p&c

Why do certain parents always look at disability provision when complaining about something?

Blue badge parking, wheelchair spaces on buses - it's always the disability provision that is the target.

If you think you have a legitimate complaint about lack of services for parents, then raise it. Start a campaign. Write to the relevant companies and service providers. But no. It's much easier to look at what has been put in place to help people with disabilities access necessary services, stamp your feet and whine that you want it too.

The two things aren't related.

I have never understood parent / child bays.

If you park abit further from the shop you can often get a space with enough room to get an infant carrier safely in / out the car.

Why do parents have this weird entitlement built up that they have the right to a large space close to the store?

Of course when heavily pregnant/ or suffering after birth when walking / lifting is hard / painful etc by all means it's a really handy principle.

But your average parent with Jimmy age 4 and Sarah age 2 are usually healthy enough to walk 100m and have enough common sense to hold both children's hands surely?!?!

I have very rarely if ever used them as frankly I am not convinced they are required at all.

Who will pay for this 'badge' system?

Who will issue the fines and monitor the system?

Talk about 1st world problems

Maybe if as a society we were prepared to love abit more and encourage our children to walk abit more we would have such an obesity issue in the UK.

I think we should all petition OPs local supermarket for a special parking space for OP and coming up to 7 weeks first baby.

B B parking spaces and P & C spaces are not at all comparable and I cannot believe people would even try.
I'd be happy if we could do away with P&C and increase the BB spots but the whiners wouldn't go for that and the stores use it as a marketing tool.
Awesome lesson these whingers are teaching their children as well. Can see where so many kids get it from.

Was going to delete my post as I'm not in the UK and I'm guessing everyone else is so my comments about making so many of the spaces dual doesn't really apply as parking here is not an issue like it is there x
Our carpark is rarely half full!

Still don't understand why there are so necessary you would think to 'dual share' with disabled spaces? They are a relatively new thing. They weren't around in my parents day and they managed. They weren't around in my day (and we had all the same rules and regs regarding baby capsules and toddler car seats etc and we managed. Why are people suddenly unable to manage without them?

As I understand it, planning law doesn't require parent and child spaces as such in new shopping developments, but some councils have it written into their policies. I don't think the spaces necessarily have to be near the shops in question. Certainly in our local supermarket the spaces furthest away from the shop are rarely full and parents could easily find plenty of space there.

“Dual sharing” implies that both have the same right to the space. That just isn’t true.

I don't think they need to lessen the amount of disabled spaces but I think there needs to be a few more parent and child spaces! In my local multi story car park there are only p&c parking spaces on 2 floors out of 6 😶 and on one of those floors there's only around 4/6 spaces.

My local Tesco isn't bad for p&c spaces. The local Asda's spaces are poorly thought out! Absolutely horrendous.

I took ds to Tesco yesterday and as the parent and child bays are closer to the store than the disabled bays I parked in a p and c space.

The positioning of these spaces in some places is rediculously badly thought out!

Most places tend to state that it is for children up to 12 years or age in the p&c so it's unreasonable to suggest only children aged under 5 are allowed to use it. I can see you're not talking about disabled bays in a bad way but it's like people say just park elsewhere if you can't use one, nowhere would add more I wouldn't have thought as it is manageable, albeit a squeeze to still use general spaces.

I have been trapped out of my car, with my child in a space (correctly parked, equidistant between the lines because I came back to my car (which was in an emptyish part of the car park away) to find a transit van either side leaving me about 3 inches of space either side... had reversed in up to the wall so boot access not possible either. Had to wait, not impressed, child less impressed!