Parking Issues - Help please

[Parking256]

Hi, NC'd for this just incase neighbours are on here.

Living on a 13 year old estate. Houses quite close together, road quite narrow. Basically as per diagram, house A is set back from the road. Everyone parks their car in front of their own house or if they have a second car, they park that in their parking space out back. We usually park in our parking space out back and visitors park out front. Never been a problem for years. House A for some ridiculous reason now has 5 cars despite there only being 3 of them. 3 are driven by one person. House A has one designated parking space in front of their house (set back) from the road but parks other 4 cars on the road. He parks two outside house B's house, and because the tunnel to get to their parking spaces out back is quite narrow, and house A parks in front of his house, house B has now taken to parking his car in front of our house, despite having an empty space out back. If he doesn't park in front of ours, someone from house A parks there.

Here's the thing. When someone parks in front of our house, it makes it nearly impossible for us and others out back by us to turn out from our parking space out back and leave the estate turning left. If we or visitors park there, we mount the kerb so the other 4 cars out back where we park can turn out (all have bigger cars than we do). We live somewhere where it's not illegal to park on the kerb and the pavement is quite wide so plenty of room for pushchairs and wheelchairs.
When house A or B park there none of us can turn out so have to leave the estate a different way turning right, which is impossible because there is also a badly parked car blocking the road so no one likes to go that way.

We're having our garden done at the moment and our parking space is full of rubble and stones for a week. We have a 1 year old son and because there is no longer any parking outside or nearby, we're having to lug him down the estate to wherever we've had to park. For some reason it's respected that everyone parks outside their house but both these houses have taken to only parking outside ours. House B is clearly annoyed that house A is always parking outside his house but is a notba chatty person so wouldn't say anything, we've just seen him silently fume.

We get on well with the neighbours and I know it's a road so it doesn't belong to anyone but no one else has a child so it seems ridiculous to me that they have seen us having to carry our son halfway up the road but are still parking outside the house. How can we address this politely?

10/10 for detail. Not sure how to help, sorry.

What a poorly designed estate with unnecessarily awkward parking arrangements.

Yanbu but don't know how you could fix it without speaking to the neighbours.

The only thing I can suggest is speaking to the council if it's creating an obstruction. Would a fire engine be able to access all homes for example?
This was an issue on my mum's estate as it's next to the station, the council had double yellows painted along sections of the road - it's much better now.

You already know that they each parking space is legal for anyone to park in. It would annoy me enormously mind but I’m not sure it’s a battle you can win.
Perhaps search for your area and emergency vehicle access, because the route you find difficult could be impossible for fire engines, and that is important.

Can you speak with house B? Team up to discuss with house A.
Might come better from a collective rather than individual

It's such a tricky one isn't it 😩 I'm happy to speak to neighbours but just not too sure how to address it..
Yeah the house A set back from the road is such a stupid placement. If it was on fire, I'm not even sure a fire truck could get to it, it's hose would need to extend far from the main road! House A can't even block one of their cars in out back because it would stop house B from being able to access his space and would mean the other spaces on the other side wouldn't be able to manoeuvre out

I did consider council but they'll double yellow outside house which then means us or visitors can't park there either despite mounting kerb.

Well, House A actually used to have an agreement with the previous owners of house B. House B always parked out front and told house A that they could use both the spaces out back because they only had 1 car and didn't need it. Due to this, House A never parked in front of B's house to respect agreement. House B moved recently and are renting to current guy and asked house A to stop parking in their space out back to allow new tenant access if he had more than 1 car (when he was due to move in, lives with girlfriend), so this then made front of house B free for all which has caused all the problems. Would be tempted to collude with house B, but he's quite a secretive private guy and doesn't even really answer the door. I'd have more luck talking to House A, just don't know how to bring it up without seeming aggressive or precious. 5 cars is absolutely ridiculous though

Annoyingly bin trucks can get through despite it being narrow because they're just somehow really skilled at navigating the shocking parking on the estate! It's only if you're turning that you can't access the road because of the angle you're turning at. You would hit the car on the other side of the road because there's not enough clearance

Nobody should be parking outside your house as it’s too close to the junction. Spaces on the road aren’t reserved, if you’ve filled your drive with building materials then you’ll have to park where you can find a space! Park in front of one of the other neighbours if there’s a space.

@bungleandgeorge There's no space. Everyone parks in front of their own house and for some reason house A knows they're all taken so doesn't park there even when they're empty. Just in front of ours and house B.

So is B parking in front of your house rather than on their own drive?

Before I had children, I didn’t give a thought to people who had and what they have to do to manage, so I expect they won’t have given it a thought either.

There isn’t anything you can do, and if it is only for a week, it isn’t worth falling out with the neighbours, annoying as it is for you in the meantime.

If you are genuinely concerned that the cars being parked outside your home may prevent emergency vehicle access, look up how to report dangerous parking to your local police force online and do this every time a car is parked in such a way as to prevent access.

If you're just frustrated by having to carry your child/park further away then you need to be honest about that and speak to neighbours A and B, asking them to please avoid parking outside your home as you find it hard when you're by yourself and have to lug your child and stuff up the street. They may choose not to take that on board but if you're not upfront with them, they probably don't realise how annoying it is for you.

Unfortunately, what you want is not something you have a "right" to (in fact if the lane to your parking space is a road rather than a shared driveway, what you want is against the highway code as none of you should be parking within 10m of a junction).

You can ask A and B to park partly on the pavement when they park outside your house. They may or may not do it. If they don't you could try asking the councilto put parking restrictions on the corner (white line if it's technically a driveway, or double yellows if a road?) to make sure you can turn out. They may or may not do it and if it's a road, as you say, they'll probably remove the space to park entirely.

I don't think there's anyway to politely ask A & B to leave a space closer to your house that's going to get you anywhere. Sorry. It is a complete pain to have to lug a child, but if you don't already have an excellent relationship with the two of them, I don't think they'll care given they clearly think the local convention is problematic for them anyway. You just need to get on with getting your garden and parking space sorted.

Excellent diagram.

The only other thing I can add is to team up with other people being inconvenienced somewhow?

What about disregarding the convention to parking where there is a space? This will annoy other neighbours but solve your issue of lugging your child from far away?

@BungleandGeorge yes annoyingly, he has a space out back, but its sometimes difficult to access because House A has a huge 4x4. However he does like to park in the road even when the 4x4 isn't there

@5475878237NC Haha thankyou!
Yeah we've disregarded it tonight because next door's space was free so we've parked there as they're on holiday. They're very protective of their space though as they have 2 cars and we get on really well with them so we're afraid to keep parking there and then instigate something that will ruin relations when they come back and see us parked there... Hoping we can use it till at least the weekend! No one else will dare park there which is something that also drives us mad cos they just park in front of ours instead! Once, the son of house A parked there and when the man came back, he immediately called his son to come and move his car

Can you use an umbrella pushchair for your child, might be easier than carrying a child over a long distance

The issue here is house A having 5 cars without the property to keep them! That is a ridiculous and they should get rid of some.

Park your car outside your house at all times and save your space for visitors?

Contact your local fire station and ask them to visit, if they can’t get to house A they should have a word with the car owners causing the obstruction. Also check if the cars from house A are road legal, if they aren’t shouldn’t be on the road.

You'll need a skip anyway for the rubble. Ask neighbour A to move his car for the skip - move the rubble and then you have your parking space back.

Also check all his cars are taxed/MOT etc. He must be paying a fortune in road tax.

I had a friend who had parking problems, they starting putting sorry I scratched your car notices on the offending cars took a week of late nights, popping out to tape the notes to windscreen, but people stopped parking in the space. No cars were harmed, the notes were a lie.

underneaththeash Everyone will pay council tax for the roads and you don’t pay more council tax based on how many cars you own

You could knock the door and ask whether the five cars are a temporary arrangement. There is a reason why they have five for the household but it may be temporary they could sell second hand cars on the side.
Or have you heard of that neighbourhood website that people join, it's all over the country now. You get a code and everyone in the neighbourhood gets one too a letter through their door. And then discuss it on there: "anyone having trouble parking on blah di blah road? Others are likely to agree, as you're finding it such a mare and you can go on from there