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.

We block our street off from time to time - the kids get to play out on their bikes together, someone does a barbecue, someone does music - it’s really nice. I feel I know my neighbours and it makes it feel more like a safe community. This is in London, not a little village. Fine, the type of estates the OP suggests aren’t for everyone, but I would happily buy a house in a place like that.

Poor people have had them since the 1960s. Complete with robberies, rapes and murders carried in the alleyways between houses and disabled/elderly people being unable to travel because it's too far and too dangerous to walk all the way to the bus stops.

Are you Sadiq Khan?!

Where’s the land for these mega car parks coming from? How safe would these be? Insurance premiums would be ridiculous. Do we each have our own parking spot? Do we need to pay for the pleasure of not parking on our drives/outside our homes? Have you ever parked at Heathrow Airport? It would take hours just to locate your car, never mind exit the car park, but a car park’s a lovely place to have an outing so we can make a day of it, right?

As previous posters have commented, how do you unload a full car with children so far away? Or should we stop reproducing too? What if the mega car park is full? Do you just nip over to the next one a further 15 mins away? With a crying, tetchy baby who needs to be fed/put to sleep/changed? Or grizzly pre-schoolers who are too young to carry much and too old to be in a stroller?

What about shift workers coming home at 2am?

What about elderly, disabled, seriously ill and time-poor people?

How is the switch to electric vehicles for the environment supposed to work if we need to charge at home? Do you know how often public chargers fail?!

What about choice? What if I just don’t want to?

And who wants to live on a bloody estate?!?

Life is just busier for everyone and amenities are always much further than a 15-minute walk - I’d prefer to spend time with my family, doing something fun or relaxing, NOT faffing about because “wouldn’t it be nice if the children could all play outside”? Well they can’t - because, you know, pedos..?!? And rubbish English weather.

It’s a stupid, selfish and ableist concept. Just like the LTNs - let’s create an idyllic world for five people and bugger up everyone else. No. Just no.

Completely unworkable

most people on estates have young children or they’re old folk.
Either demographic would suit pedestrianisation on this scale

Your question is an interesting one because it shows you are dissatisfied with how the world is evolving. You are right to be thinking about this but you will need to follow the problem back to the real issue.
The big fundamental issue at this time is over population. No government can solve this, it will need a catastrophic cull of humanity by natural or unnatural causes. There is a good chance sufficient healthy souls will survive and group together as a sustainable gene pool.
A society that is rewarded by worth to the community has to replace money and social status.
None of us want to return to the dark ages and there is no reason why we should. Simple robotics is the answer. Not AI or complex devices but a unified design of food producing machinery. In a fresh start society, agriculture and farming would be simple and sustainable and not a smartphone or computer in sight.
The same for the creation of homes. Not the hi-rise nightmare of inner cities or the one-of-a-kind status home. A proper community based design with manufacturing in one sector and homes away from it in another.
Food, clothing, health, transport, housing, all free of charge.
What would you do all day, in this utopia?
Socialising in your own time, much like you should do now, less the violence, alcohol, and drugs. TV as such would not exist. It would be replaced by a smartphone sized device that can communicate readily and form the root of accurate and truthful information and essential news. It would also closely monitor your health and useful things.
Work would mainly consist of designing, managing, monitoring the mechanised systems. Remember, creativity would be a human preoccupation, drudge and hard physical work for machines.
Oh! There would be no possibility of telling lies, committing any form of crime or being misled.
Government would be replaced by a rolling team of qualified experts who would have no facility to influence an outcome that benefited them unless it gave equal benefit to the rest of society.
Footballers, singers and other non producers could do this for free, in their own time, just for the love of it.

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@MaxFortune

Sounds like the Atomic Age in the 50's 😁

@MaxFortune I hope your tongue is firmly in your cheek.
Incase it's not, what a steaming pile of distopian drivel.

There was an estate built in the Midlands approx 20 years ago that did this, no parking in or near the houses.
Parking was agreed in a huge local supermarket car park about 10 mins walk away for a yearly fee.
Supermarket sold, new owners not in agreement, council stepped in as part of planning, new owners put parking charges up.
Not practical at all.

To add to my previous post, i think its time new home builders do what the States do and put garages underneath properties. practical less ground space used.