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.

I don't have an extra 20+ minutes to walk to my car each day, let alone lugging groceries, kids etc
I think it's a good idea in theory just not practical.
Also if you really wanted this, then wouldn't you just buy a house in the country?

Most people our way use their car to avoid a 10 minute walk to the school.

It’s quite funny how many people here are belittling you OP, when it’s really quite a nice suggestion. And really most people have their heads in the sand, we can’t all be car drivers and still have a planet we can live on. Even electric cars take up a huge amount of energy just to make them.

Why would people be so against them? Honestly it’s not that hard not having a car. I don’t have one. Many people in London and other big cities don’t.

All the reasons why something can’t work like shopping blah blah blah. Nonsense. It’s all really solvable. I get my shopping delivered like most people, deliveries can still occur!

Which is half the reason we are in climate change.

Not everyone lives in London or cities.

Disabled people still like to get out of the house occasionally.

That was for @WinterSnowing

I don’t know about the parking, but I’d love to live on an estate that was an old Center Parcs. So much greenery and I love the bungalows. Never stayed there but used to work at one. I’d want my garden fenced off though 👍🏻

Probably already said - what about insurance costs? Car is parked 10 minute walk away with no other security.

It wouldn't work. These costs need to be met by someone which is probably Centre Parks is v expensive.

I do drive but gave up my car when realising I was only using it to go to work, shopping, school run... All within 15 minutes of my house. Wasn't worth the cost, the road rage or the battery constantly dying.
So yes, I do walk home in the pissing rain or snow, my choice though.

Centerparcs has security guards.

If a developer buys land to build on, no way are they going to reserve a sizeable quantity of it to create a carpark. People don't want to lose front gardens and paths so houses would still occupy broadly the same footprint, but would be substantially more expensive to buy.

Some people don't drive but rely on taxis to get to wherever they need to be due to disability, but they don't possess a blue badge and nor does their taxi driver.

Trades carrying out work aren't going to park up and walk 10 minutes with their tools, so getting someone to do work would be a nightmare.

Some people have a lot of kit they take to and from work and it just wouldn't be manageable.

Carrying large quantities of shopping would be difficult. Juggling said shopping with children would be troublesome.

Places with very little road traffic already exist.

I think you’ve included some very sweeping generalisations there! I think you should be able to read from my original post that it was a courtyard of houses looking out onto fells. So a very lovely development. I’m not sure the age has major impacts on culture of an area. you’ve assumed a lot from “70s” without knowing the area, population density, crime stats etc. I have no idea where you live so I would never set off to preach what it’s like?

Well don’t live there then if you have to have a car! And people with disabilities do have other forms of transport than cars, they can get down to their car in a scooter if they want to live somewhere like that. You are really picking at this now. No system is perfect, but advantages are huge. Including for disabled people. There could be better community support systems.

Indeed in Denmark older people, many disabled, are living in just such places as in other areas of the world, where it is a car free estate or complex and bicycles or electric wheelchairs can move around freely without having to negotiate parked cars on kerbs etc.

And that still doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea. I’d move there in a flash!

And then from a safety perspective, I wouldn't really be in a rush to advise women to be walking alone to and from cars 15 minutes away. I certainly wouldn't want to be walking to my car at 5am.

How do you think half the population of the country manages without a car? How do the majority of people the world over manage? Babies in a pram. Small children in pram or buggy board or scooter. I live a brisk 20 minute walk from our nearest town. I do it almost daily with 2 children under 4. One is in a pram. The 3 year old walks or scoots. If it rains we sometimes get the bus part of the way. Shopping goes under the pram or in a rucsac. It's completely fine for every day life. The few thousand saved by not having a second car means I don't have to work as many hours. More time with children, healthier lifestyle.
It would be tricky with no car parking nearby loading up for holidays. Apart from that no issue.

I'm sorry that my ex is a farmhand and feeds the country. Completely unrealistic of me to want to stay in the location where my kids were settled and at school and I had friends and family for support what with being disabled and all.

Obviously.

In Center parcs do you think tradesmen walk up with their tools?

Do you think cars in a car park take up more space than big roads and car parking spaces in front of houses? Like in Center parcs?

Do you think people in center parcs carry shopping?

No! Tradesmen and deliveries could get in. It still vastly reduces the traffic to almost zero.

We just need good cheap public transport so it's cheaper and easier to leave the car home most of the time along with community car share schemes and housing estates having to have a play area to get planning permission.

If you think it's just as easy as getting to their car on a scooter you have NO IDEA what it's like for a disabled person to transfer from mobility scooter to car. And you've no idea about the weight and size of a mobility Scooter or the requirements to store them without them being stolen whilst still being available to those who need them when they need them

It's a daft idea.

Lots and lots of people raise kids without a car, this country is so car centric its ridiculous

If anything, what could make most sense might be a backwards cul-de-sac - where the fronts of all the houses face out into the road (with drives). Then, you could ban all vehicles in the section behind the back of everybody's houses and make a big communal garden/play area (in addition to or instead of individual back gardens) where children could safely play and people could sit out and enjoy a traffic-fume free space.

Other than the very odd exception - maintenance vans or vehicles delivering turf, fencing or whatever, which could need a special permit or regular short allowable slot - nobody would have any need to use a vehicle there at all.

That's why I didn't say anything about your estate most 70s buildings were a failure thrown up mold ridden etc. Even the shopping centres tore down wonderful old buildings and put up cold windy brutalist concrete

Do you know how many accidents occur from pedestrians and roads? You are way more likely to get harmed walking on a pavement at 5am by a car than you are being attacked by a random stranger. And taxis would probably be allowed on those kind of estates anyway, so you know, what is your issue?

How do you think people in cities who don’t have cars manage?

People in rural and suburban areas are far too dependant on their cars. I live in a city centre. The distance I walk from the shops is probably more than the distance OP is suggesting between home and car park. People have become extremely lazy and pampered.

My grandmother has never worked. My mother didn't work for most of my childhood. They shopped daily with no car. It's easy enough to carry a day or two's worth of shopping, less easy to carry a week's worth of shopping.

What about doing what Switzerland do. Underground car parks with security built with most housing.