My First Parking Thread- all out war has been declared.

[Casschops]

I live on a street which is all terraced property and houses are very old so the street is narrow as people didn't have cars then. None of us have drives and we do not have front gardens so our doors open straight out onto the street.
We park wherever on the street and this is not about parking outside our own property this is out and out war people!
The parking etiquette is that on one side (mine) we park with all four tyres on the floor and on the other side they park with two tyres on the kerb and two on the road. It has been like this forever.
The council have agrees that this is the most reasonable and practicable way as my side affords access for wheelchair and pushchair users etc so we don't need feedback from that point of view.
My neighbour on the opposite (Pat) side has some plant pots outside her house ( she us on the two wheels on the kerb side) and parks her car on our side of the street which is fine by me as I wouldn't want to wreck my tyres.
A neighbour on my side who is opposite her (Syd) has parked their car directly outside Pat's house and leaving her with the need to climb over the plants to get out! 🤦‍♀️
There has also been a mystery complainer they all think its Syd and Pat has been told that she has to move her plants ( forgot to say that she is in a back to back terraced where we have yards).
She had a chat with the council and they agreed that she would be perfectly entitled to park her car on her side with four tyres on the road as this would then afford access to the pavement in front of her house. She has done this and this now means that you cannot get down the other end of the street without using a very inaccessible access road. We now have two cars parked with four tyres down and its causing fucking mayhem as nobody is breaking the law!
I can't take the dog out without somebody chewing my ear off about it and although it is inconvenient AIBU to tell them all that I don't give a shit. I just find the whole thing so childish....on both sides. She is loitering outside her house now, looking for a conflab, she is drumming up support via the Monday dog walking group who pass our houses and she is going door to door. She is like a politician. I can't hide my smile its like some shit storyline in a soap opera.😁

Wouldn't be an issue where I live as those plant pots would have been nicked by now, unless she's like Arkwright from "Open all Hours" and takes them in at night.

Dig up the pavement outside your house and go full on Charlie Dimmock with an ornamental pond, lawn and perhaps a mini pagoda. That'll show 'em.

This could end badly when if everyone had kept to the original arangement it would have been easy. I agree if I was the council and received any complaints about this I would double yellow one side to ensure access for emergency vehicles. It’s a simple solution from their pony of view. It would increase the mayhem!

Pat is a dickhead, and I’d enjoy an update featuring smashed plant pots.
Or, at least a campaign of secretly emptying jars of piss into the pots with the plants mysteriously dying...

Ah it's exactly the same where I live too, and on all the roads nearby! A few years ago, the council came and ticketed all the cars on the "park on the kerb" side. I went in and explained the situation and was told that as it's illegal to park on the kerb we just had to pay up.

Technically they were right and none of us should be parking on the kerb - but as you say it's historical and the narrow roads date from a time when no-one had cars! (houses were built around 1890-1900s).

I didn't know it was possible for the council to legally allow parking on the pavement in this situation though - that's interesting.

Please note that this is not to scale and the fire engine is included to show that currently there is access if we park four tyres on one side and two on the other
For clarity
We are allowed plants at the front to our cellar grid line- Pat's pots of course go over.
-There is not enough room due to pavement width on Pat's side to walk anyway (I need to modify this on the diagram) so this is why we park two tyres up on her side.
-Usual established access is on our side.

• yes that is a sheltered accommodation.
• You could not fit that fire engine down the street if we were all four tyres on the road.

@RainingBatsAndFrogs

So are all the cars with their wheels on the pavement.

Not necessarily. Some councils permit it if the pavements are wide enough and it creates more parking.

Wait. Absent a diagram:

Pat is using 2 plant pots to keep her front door car free.

A neighbour, annoyed at this space blocking, has parked his car as though the pots are not there.

To make exiting from her house less Horse of the Year Show Pat is now parking her car outside her house - but all 4 wheels on the road.

So now rather than blocking the pavement she is blocking the road.

Has anyone called those people we like to still call traffic wardens?

She's a total twonk!

'not a large ladder'

Excellent diagram @Casschops

Everyone get the biggest plant pots they can find. And then nobody will be able to park or get out of their house.

What if someone lives on Pat's side and parks on Pat's side but up the road from their house. How do they get to their front door if they cant walk on the pavement?

@EggyPegg I thought it was pretty epic.

@FelicityPike

She needs to move those pots!

Or they may be accidently knocked over, cough cough.

Report the plant pots to the council. Report the car blocking the road to the police. Job done.

@Casschops your diagram makes it beautifully clear.

Pat must get rid of the plant pots outside her house. Or, at the very least, tuck them right into the wall.

If a resident phoned the council and said that Pat was parking her car in such a way that it meant that ambulances couldn't get through, the council would soon tell her to get her pots sorted!

@EggyPegg

#TeamSyd

You could create a phonics book out if this.

Pat's pots are a pain.
'Move your pots Pat' said Syd 'I can not park'.
Pat would not.
Syd was cross

😂😂😂😂 Fabulous!

Narrow streets like this are useless. Mil lives in a 2969’s semi and the road outside is too narrow but it’s a dead end and all the other streets are the same. Many people have turned the front garden into a drive, they have huge gardens when it would have been more sensible to use a good few feet of that for a road. The agreement is that cats generally park with two wheels raised however a neighbour was against this, until his massive people Cartier sitting on the road blocked access to an ambulance. The paramedics had to get out and run up the street on foot as they had an unconscious elderly patient! Luckily he was in and able to move after we knocked on his door to point out what was happening. It is such a long street and he was blocking the middle.,

@SoupDragon

Pat needs hanging baskets.

She does indeed!

*1960’s semi, she isn’t living in the future!

She knocked at the door earlier my involvement begins and ends in Mumsnet. I can't even be bothered but I love some of the replies
I will update as the drama unfolds, just think all this used to happen while I was in work now im at home its a whole other world.

Second reporting the plant pots to the council. You really don't want to be double yellowed.

@EggyPegg

#TeamSyd

You could create a phonics book out if this.

Pat's pots are a pain.
'Move your pots Pat' said Syd 'I can not park'.
Pat would not.
Syd was cross

Golden and winner of the thread 🌟

@viques wins the thread with that .

I'd like a #teamsyd shirt please. Can it be the next mumsnet campaign?

I wouldn't report the roadblocks FatCat - he was obeying the Unwritten Code of the Narrow Road from the beginning - it was PlantPot Pat that caused the problem - first, she parked on the opposite side of the road because she is a snowflake about her types, then she complained when someone else was forced to park on HER side of the road.

As others have said - It would be AWFUL if SOMETHING HAPPENED tp her PLANT POTS

A few years ago, the council came and ticketed all the cars on the "park on the kerb" side. I went in and explained the situation and was told that as it's illegal to park on the kerb we just had to pay up.

Outside London this is exactly true. Driving on the pavement is illegal, but in the rest of England and Wales parking on the pavement is legal provided you don't cause an obstruction, unless there is a specific Traffic Regulation Order prohibiting it. This is also currently the case on Scotland though the law will change next year.

And even though a car parked on the pavement was presumably driven to get there, it's not possible to issue fines or penalties based on this.