AIBU to see if neighbours would consider letting us park on their drive?

[GardenWoes231]

First thing - they don’t have cars.

Our street is mix of drives (illegal - none have dropped kerbs) but a lot of on street parking. For the last few years this has actually been fine as most people are pretty sensible and everyone who parks there every day parks in front of their house and everyone is considerate.

My neighbour however now has a new job and has parked an extremely long flatbed truck covering the front of our house where we’ve parked every day since we moved in and also covering his own drive. He has an additional car that also takes another space on the road.

So what was previously an easy setup I never even had to think about is now stressful every day as I genuinely have nowhere to park on my street.

Before anyone says - I can’t speak to him about it. He’s my immediate next door neighbour so knows he is inconveniencing me - last time we spoke was when he came into my garden and screamed in my face for a good 10 minutes because we had objected to his planning application. That’s the sort of person he is.

So is this a totally mad idea? If you had a drive and you never used it and didn’t own a car how would you feel approached by someone on your street and asking if they can park their car there? I would offer a small amount of cash (monthly?!) for their troubles?

Need to know if this is totally crackers and I’ve lost the plot and if someone came to your house and asked this what you’d think?

@GardenWoes231

Yeah ask them. Why not? You will of course get posters saying 'you don't own the road!' Yada yada yada......... But when you have parked there since you moved in, and someone sticks a flatbed truck there, taking up 3 spaces or so, then that is annoying, and rude of them to be honest. People always have a go at people for getting irked, but they would if it were them.

My friend has a big 30 foot wide piece of tarmac at the side of her house - belonging to her property- and it fits 3 cars side by side. 3 of her neighbours (who have no driveway) use it. (She has no car, so doesn't need it.) She just lets them use it, and doesn't charge anything. It makes for really good neighbour relations.

Ask your neighbour. Good luck! (Do offer something though, like £20 a month or something.)

I wouldn't mind this as a temporary thing maybe for a couple of weeks or occasionally if you had guests or something like that, but would say no to you using it as your permanent parking spot.

I don't think the flatbed should be parked on a residential street, too large.

I reckon about £50 a month. We have considered offering as we have a big drive. I don't think I could be arsed for less.

yes £10 per week is fair.

Are there no parking regulations prohibiting flatbed trucks parking in residential areas? Perhaps you could sponsor one locally.

Where I live, trucks aren't allowed to park in residential areas.

Just on the drive not being big enough issue. We bought a house that had been blocked paved but no dropped kerb. Were told it wouldn't get permission. It is too short but we the council let us put a dropped kerb in as we could price our car didn't block any of the pavement and it's on the condition that if we sell that we have to tell the new owners they're not allowed to block the pavement. So it's definitely worth trying to find out.

Nothing to lose.
Not quite the same but I swapped allocated parking spaces with an older couple when they came round to ask.
My space is just outside their gate & theirs is at the back of my house but with an alley to walk down.
Most people are nice!

I lived in a town centre house and didn't drive. I had a parking space in the back yard, same idea as a drive really and let my mums friend use it every day. She worked in town and often had problems finding a place to park. It never occurred to me to ask for money, I wasn't using the space so it was no problem. If I was occasionally expecting visitors I would just tell her. The security boost of having a car there when I was out was a bonus too.

Just a note, if it's over 7.5 tonnes it should not be parked on a residential street except for loading/unloading. Vehicles over 3.5 tonnes are subject to local restrictions especially in London

I would not want to get into an arrangement with a neighbour about parking on my drive, and would not welcome being approached about it.

It's perfectly reasonable to ask.

We don’t use our drive ( big double drive ) but opposite neighbours park opposite the drive making it difficult to swing out as we have big suv types of cars so we let one of our neighbours who has a mini use our drive on the condition that they park right in the middle preventing any cheeky fuckers from using the drive