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.

Jannier, so how do young women without access to cars stay safe? Should we be transporting our daughters door to door in cars just to avoid sexual assault? What a way to live

Not everyone who is disabled is entitled to a blue badge.

Doesn't make them less disabled.

This.
Right now, I am nursing a potential broken foot (I can not wait in A&E for 15+ hours), so dealing with it at home.
Fuck walking 15 minutes to my car.

I thought you lived rurally? Or has that changed?

It’s a car free for all on 2 days a week at CP so that people can get all their stuff and shopping straight to their villa. And numerous other vehicles at other times. It’s not traffic free and I think crucially people do not have to go to work or school, or cope with anything more difficult than a day or twos worth of groceries.
OP isn’t suggesting everyone has amenities in walking distance. She’s suggesting that everyone has to walk 15 minutes to their car and then drive to the amenities. Well what’s the point of that? Just so that children can play on the road. Most places have safe green areas and how many kids are usually playing there? All sounds inconvenient for no actual gain apart from for the local kids to run wild right outside your house. Can We have estates for adults only?!

People are just too lazy. I hear all the time "but what if you have kids? You need parking three steps from your front door" I have young children and mysteriously manage without a car at all.

Communal parking or parking far from your house is a pain in the arse. We briefly had to do it pre-kids and it was horrid. I worked long hours and often left home in the early hours and returned around midnight, doing the walk after a 16 hour day was exhausting. And a bit scary at times tbh. I'm no stranger dressing for the weather but I got caught in horrific heavy downpours a couple of times and couldn't imagine doing it long term.
When we moved we ruled out a part of the city we loved as it was notorious for bad parking and having to park two or three streets over.

Horrible idea, smug and overly controlling. I do not want to live in your shitty Centre Parcs fantasy. Leave me, my car, and my driveway in peace.

I don't want to carry my baby in his bucket seat with his pram (and no, I'm not buying a special travel system either), my rucksack, plus the week's groceries by foot 10 minutes to the house just so kids can pop wheelies without looking where they're going.

By all means, campaign for better public transport and low speed limits in residential areas, but banning people's cars from their own homes is pissy bollocks, frankly.

@QuertyGirl I do? I haven't changed my story. I live in a small rural village, which is what I've said all along?

You said you were talking about old estates, so converting them - and I live in an estate of houses that is about 30 years old - which is similar to how you describe where you live?

Small rural villages do have estates of houses you know?

Exactly. I battled my disability for 5 years without a diagnosis. Assumed I was lazy /pathetic. Now have a clear diagnosis but as it's a fluctuating neurological condition (myasthenia gravis) it is very tricky to get a blue badge. One day I am well enough to ice skate (albeit I am unable to speak or swallow afterwards!) the next day I can't climb the stairs or even hold up my hand long enough to put an earring in.

That's a town, not a small village.

I've agreed that this idea wouldn't be suitable for rural properties and that blue badges would be exempt.

I think you just want to fight me 🥷

How is it a town? There are about 200 houses. One shop. No pub. No schools. How is that a town?

Tbh we live in a newish small, contained, "eco" estate, which has a center parcs vibe, and one of the huge pluses is the lack of cars inside the estate. Each house faces into the estate, with only footpath access to front doors. All cars park at the back of the houses, so residents can access through rear gardens or walk round to their front doors. It means the main heart of the estate, which is mainly landscaping, parks, a river with bridges connecting each side of the estate, is completely car free! It's brilliant, feels so safe and peaceful. Kids can cycle up and down with no worry of traffic, and the parks and river are really clean and well maintained. I don't understand why more housing estates aren't built this way, I assume cost, and wanting to fill every inch with as many houses as possible, which would never have happened where we are, due to the river that runs through the estate, which means it was built in a completely different way to normal.

A town with no schools, no pub, no coffee shop or car dealer or butchers or greengrocer or jeweller.

No nursery. No nothing. Just a co op with a petrol station.

But that's a town.

On what planet?

That's not a housing estate, it's a crap planning decision. Those houses shouldn't have been built without the necessary amenities.

I've seen those places- clumps of boxy houses with nothing nearby except a motorway if you're lucky.

Exactly the kind of development we need to move away from.

There is no motorway anywhere near me.

Even worse.

Local planning dept clearly wants shooting with shite

If new estates had sufficient facilities, including decent parking, shops, GPs, schools then car use wouldn't be such an issue.

When I was small we lived in a village. In those days it had a butcher, baker, a couple of general stores, newsagent, cafe and even a shoe shop and small clothes shop.
My Mum used to take me with my sister in the pram down to the shops to do her shopping. The pram was one of these big ones and all the shopping was put in the rack underneath. That was life in the 60s. We had a car but my Dad used it for work as he had to travel long distances. Occasionally we would drive to the nearest town at weekends but that was a treat.

Nowadays with lack of high street shops, out of town retail parks , children having to be bussed or driven to school because they cannot get into the local school things have changed dramatically. Also people tend to travel further to get to work and public transport has deteriorated badly.

I think that our whole way of living needs re-thinking. And that village where I lived as a kid has about one shop left now.

No. It's rural.

You were discussing converting housing estates. For various reasons it won't work - the main ones being disability related and space related and the impracticality of the mobility scooter plan

I haven't lied.

I didn't say you lied.

You're still just after a fight tho

I thought you lived rurally? Or has that changed?

You inferred I lied.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

I'm not fighting you in any way.

I don't get what's funny?

What are you doing then?

I'm honestly not sure now 🫖☕️

I'm just answering the points re the developments and why they're not really a good idea.