A parking thread! Builders as neighbours - street full of vans

[pensterino]

Thoughts please on how to deal with this. We've just moved house and now discovered that at least four of our near neighbours are running building businesses from their homes. I don't mind about that, but I do mind that they leave their vans on the street.

The houses are 1920s semis with enough space in front to park. We just have one parking space but many of our neighbours - including all the builders - have taken out their entire front gardens, and dropped the full length of the kerb, in order to park three vehicles. That means that on street parking is at a bit of a premium. And when these vans are parked in the street it's really difficult to get in and out of our drive because they block our view of the street both ways.

Things to bear in mind:

• Our house has a covenant saying no businesses to be run from home, mustn't be a nuisance. Their houses, built at the same time, presumably have the same covenant (enforceable I think by the council.)
• I am absolutely pro small business, and if it were only one there wouldn't be a problem. But four are too many for the street to absorb.
• I've only just moved here and I really don't want to be the problem neighbour myself (or at least, be viewed as the problem neighbour)!

YAB completely U. They’re just living their lives and not doing anything wrong. You’d be better to accept it and move on. What exactly do you want to happen? They’re not all going to move hosue at once.

I feel your pain, where we live it is only on road parking, multiple neighbours in the trades so multiple extra vehicles (ie one or two family cars + transit or bigger van) and on top of that there's at least four who have vans converted to campers.

However there is nothing we can do about it unless we were to save for a house on a much more expensive street where there were driveways that fit multiple vehicles. On the upside all the neighbours are lovely and we have had a few do work on our house or been able to get recommendations from them (we've literally got a builder, a plumber, a joiner, a floor fitter...) You really need to find a way to live with it.

Loads of builders and others with vans on my street but I have no issue with it, instead I chose to be friendly a nice.

YABU to say they are running a business from home. They are builders and run their business where they build.

YABU to complain about parking when you surely should have looked at it before buying.

YABU to complain about on street parking when you have your own drive. If it needs to be bigger you can clearly make is so as the neighbours have.

with regards to pulling out of the driveway safely, back in so you can pull out safely.

This isn't really true though, is it? They're not using the residential property to conduct their business. Builders work away from home by the very nature of their work.

I mean from a legal perspective. You “run” a business from its registered office don’t you?
Not a lawyer so I might be wrong but we have a maildrop address for our business despite working from home so I always thought we officially run our business from the registered address
I could be wrong though

I would say that they are running their businesses from home. That's where they do the paperwork, deal with enquiries from customers, organise supplies etc (even if they also do some organisation on their sites, and, of course, do work at other premises).

However, though I feel your pain, I suspect there is nothing you can do about it without causing much greater problems for yourself.

I would look for the positives instead - you have a ready supply of tradesmen on hand!

Probably, longer term, you need to save up for a house in a more expensive area (and visit it in evenings and at weekends to check out the parking situation).

Lots of respondees on this thread are not really reading the OP and just saying "don't be so middle class and understand that trades people have to earn a living". Very knee-jerk.

If you have a house with room for one vehicle on the drive then no problem. If you also park other vehicles on the road then it impacts on your neighbours! It's not prejudice, it's not snobbishness, it's fucking obvious.

It's obvious but it also affects the majority of the UK. It's just how it is and if you don't want it, you buy a house where it doesn't happen.

I don't think I'm a snob, I have absolutely zero problems with them having businesses or vans. Good for them! My problem is solely with the (large) vans being parked both sides of a fairly narrow road and blocking sightlines when exiting our drive.

I'd be very tempted to go for the "pave over the whole front garden and drop the entire kerb" route except that the council probably wouldn't allow it now because so many others have, and, more importantly, that DH hates totally paved over front gardens from an environmental POV.

The problem has I think arisen post covid. It took us nearly a year to buy the house due to dozy vendors and the solicitors (theirs) from hell; during our first viewings there were no parking issues at all. I think the general increase in demand for tradesmen has led our neighbours to buy new, and more, vans (they mostly seem to have very recent plates).

Our neighbour over the road has five vehicles, two Mercedes and a brand new van which are parked on his paved over front garden, and two other works vehicles which he leaves in the road. His next door neighbour has space for two vehicles in his drive, which he uses for private cars, whilst leaving his van in the road. The guy two doors down has lots of parking out front but still leaves his van in the road. And the chap on our side, next door neighbour but one, again sticks his car on the drive but his van on the road.

Am I really being unreasonable to think this is a bit over the top? I wouldn't worry at all if the vans were parked on their owners' drives, it's just that they are making it really difficult to access our own property. And we're only occasional drivers - mostly we walk or bus for work.

@A580Hojas there are plenty of places in the UK where it is common to have a house without parking, or insufficient parking. Not all of us can afford houses with a large footprint and multi car driveway.

Round here EVERYONE parks on the road. You'd have a heart attack!

You have a parking space? If you needed more than one buy a house with adequate parking…
surely these businesses didn’t all set up between you viewing and buying your house?

and if your dh gets over his environmental goadiness you could have adequate parking too

If it blocks sightlines make sure you're reversing onto your driveway and pull out slowly.

I get what you mean about it being a van.

Someone has recently started parking a large van right at the end of our drive. It means we have no line of sight when pulling out at all. So we have to edge out and hope that if someone is coming they stop. It's not an issue when it's a car parked there, cos you can either see over it or through it's windows.

That said they are entitled to park there, and it wouldn't be worth falling out with neighbours over.

Personally id look into extending your drop down kerb, or just starting to leave a car in that space so a van can't park there.

We have one car and one space. Over the road have five vehicles and three spaces. It wouldn't be some much of a problem if they put the vans on the drive and the cars on the road, but it is very difficult to see what's going on round the biggest size of Transit - which are also, frankly, a bit too long for the short lengths of kerb they're parked up against.

I'm a bit surprised that no one has advocated talking to them and asking if it's possible to park somewhere where they wouldn't cause so much of a problem. There's a school round the corner; they could park outside it since during school hours they'd be off doing work.

Has anyone any experience of these sort of conversations? Did they go well, badly? What would be the best approach?

If everyone has a dropped kerb and their entire front garden used as a driveway then there will be nowhere left for people to park on the street.
I can see this from both sides.

But there's no conversation to be had?! They are legally parking their vans on the road.

Honestly there is nothing you can do, except take care when pulling out. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Don't spout bollocks, please. I live in London on a street of terraced houses and I work for a tradesman.

They’re unlikely to want to park out of sight because their vans will be full of expensive stuff. It sounds very frustrating but unfortunately something u have to put up with

The covenant wouldn't infringe their parking rights anyway as they're not working from home.

If you have two cars, just park one across the road from you and the other outside your house and then there's no issue. WE had to do that for a bit when next door was having work done - they came round and asked us to move the cars inside, but we explained we couldn't get the cars out safely.

Because it's an unreasonable thing to ask. You've just moved in and you want to tell your neighbours that you think their legally parked vans should be moved, so as not to lower the tone of the street?

FFS, get over yourself.

Reverse on the drive and creep out

Not necessarily. Lots of businesses have the accountant's address as the registered office, but no-one would claim the business was being run from there.

And this is the answer re: visibility when maneuvering.

I have the same in my street. I also didn’t realise because of viewing houses in the daytime. I have gotten used to it over time tbh. I think it’s not on if they park them outside other people’s houses. Generally, most of the houses have converted their front gardens to parking, it looks shit, brings down the area, it’s depressing to have no greenery or gardens and to live in what feels like the M25 services. But, there are probably bigger battles to fight and if I move I’ll have to pay more attention to the outside. It’s a shame that nice streets are ruined and that policy didn’t prevent it.