To think we could make housing estates like Center Parcs re cars

[QuertyGirl]

The USP of Centre Parcs is for many, the fact that they are mostly car free. Kids can play out and ride their bikes like I did when I was kid.

Can't do that now due to the amount of cars, speed and size of cars and, attitude of some car drivers.

People (including myself) pay a small fortune to holiday at CP.

Why can't we make housing estates more like that?

Communal car parks in walking distance, deliveries by small electric vehicles from a hub (like old fashioned milk floats), exemptions for blue badge holders and funding for electric mobility scooters for those that need them.

Yet, if the council suggests a couple of cycle lane and all hell breaks loose.

An electric mower that can be ridden on roads.
There you go!

One persons too heavy to carry would be another person's 3 small items that you could have got on with carrying . There would be no time when anywhere was car free because of tradesman, deliveries, blue badge holders, people with ' heavy ' shopping. Two people who lived there would do it as was intended. Every other person. would find a reason why they were still allowed to drive their door so nobody would feel okay about letting their children play out

I would love this, assuming it was all part of a joined up plan to support people to get to where they need to go. Good quality, affordable public transport. Great active travel networks. Support for those who need to travel by car. Better, local facilities.

And it would recognise the fact that many people don't have access to a car, so always have to carry shopping, make the kids walk a bit etc.

Do you live in a town? Somewhere there are buses? Can you cycle? Can you walk 15 minutes?

(The answer to all the above for me is no)

Which is why the UK must have more vision around these things. Building housing estates without primary school provision should be illegal.

I use a lot of heavy gear and equipment for my job. I load it from my house into the van, then back from van into the house, every time. It takes me about 7-8 trips to do one load as it's all very heavy. If I carry anything remotely heavy for too long (heavy laptop included on my back) I get a migraine.

I'm nowhere near blue badge, I am on the face of it very healthy, active etc. But If I am forced to carry stuff it leaves me incapacitated for days.

How should I make that work with your plan?

I live on an old, average housing estate- ie the subject of this thread.

If that's aimed at me, I can assure you neighbour wasn't disabled. Just lazy.

Ok.

Do you live in a town? Somewhere there are buses? Can you cycle? Can you walk 15 minutes?

Absolutely not relevant here. It's a village with little new development nor space to do so and it's a 2 form entry school. Next village is several miles away. You're making a lot of assumptions here. Oh and let's add in the fact there was a landslip a year ago that the council haven't fixed yet making it twice as long a journey just now

BTW I spent 30 years growing up and living in big towns and cities where you couldn't park your car closer than 100m away minimum. You'd have to pay me a huge sum of money to go back to that. Not being close to your vehicle is a pain for safety reasons as a young woman at night but also hugely inconvenient for those with children, shopping, if you need to transport someone with mobility issues. I know people who can drive perfectly fine but can't walk any distance at all. Even more of an issue in bad weather

Then obviously the OPs plans don't apply to your village?

And obviously the school should have been enlarged if there are children that need to go miles away. Bit of forward planning from the govt wouldn't have gone amiss.

Good point made by PP re the space required by the car park

you could just...keep your car outside your home instead?

It's a brilliant idea! Unfortunately, too many people want their cars at their house (laziness) and/or are worried about security in a 'remote' car park.

Hopefully we can do this in the near future though.

A fair concern to worry about your car.

also, I bet communal car parks will end up being a spot for smoking weed, kicking a ball around.

for which you could have instead ...parking outside your home!

@Jaxhog You say it as if being worried about security is a trivial matter. As I said this has been tried before in housing estates in Britain. It just led to a large rise in car crime.
And the police do nothing about car crime.
Introduce it first in a nice middle class area before experimenting again on people in poorer areas. But middle class people would not accept it.

Agreed. From "Transport: Disability and Accessibility Statistics, England 2020":

"Disabled people are more likely to be in a household without access to a car and in households with access to a car they are less likely to be a driver."

Safer streets benefit everyone. And of course, if more people who can use alternative means of transport do so, the roads will be less congested for those who do need to use cars.

Oh has it been tried?

agree security issues as a lone woman. Or indeed lone man, as they are the most targeted for muggings etc I think.

Weaponising the idea of people with disabilities against active travel is ableism.

There’s loads of people, especially in towns and cities who have disabilities and do not use cars.
There’s people who walk, cycle, other use wheeling for transport or exercise or both.

And there are also plenty of disabled people who cannot easily travel somewhere without a car. Surely you don't think that all disabilities and how they affect all individuals are exactly the same?

@daybroke

Not sure what point your trying to make here?

You get a blue badge so you could live on this fantasy housing estate and park your car on the drive, if you wanted too.

Or, you could live in a tiny hamlet on the Yorkshire moors and drive a Land Rover and this whole thread would be irrelevant to you.

It's almost as if I'd suggested banning cars. Or was that what you think my OP meant?

Thing is with good local shops and transport links more people would just leave the car at home on the drive when it's not needed. If we use our car it's always because there either isn't another transport option or because we need to go door to door to transport something.

I grew up on a council estate in the 50s and 60s. When I went back to visit years later, the squares we played in were full of cars and the swings had been changed into a car park. I think middle ground is needed. Children need to be able to play outside..all children, not only those with private gardens and even those would benefit from playing independently.

I'm asking because you keep saying you don't drive due to being disabled.

But there are lots of different types of disabilities that mean you can't drive and people may be differently affected to you because you can walk or cycle better than them or because you have a school close to you or because there's a good public transport system where you are or a good reliable local taxi company that isn't £50 each way to the local hospital

This is a good point - the twice I've been to CP I couldn't properly relax because despite the "car ban" there are always maintenance and housekeeping vans zooming around and they didn't seem to have any concept of a speed limit.

I like OP's idea but it would need to be closer to "all or nothing" - and I do worry it would be excessively exclusionary for disabled people.

What about taking large items to and from home or doing a big food shop how is tha supposed to work. Never mind any other reasons. Me and my kids would have to leave even earlier and return home later if we had to walk to and from car to house morning and night. And it flat out wouldn't work on football training evening as I just wouldn't have enough time full stop between school pick up and start of training.