Car parked on residential road for weeks

[Cattrapinflap]

We live on a small residential road under 10 minutes walk from a station in zone 2 London. Very quick links to the City. When we first moved here, our small street was pretty empty. Since then, the surrounding roads have had parking restrictions put on them. This makes our road a hot target for commuters as it’s quiet, so no pressure when trying to parallel park, no traffic, looks fairly safe…

The council canvassed our street over introducing restrictions but it was part of a much wider area where residents would not vote to inflict an annual parking fee on themselves in exchange for this.

Moving the car in the week day means coming back to no carpark 9/10 times. I accept it despite initially finding it annoying. That’s the price you pay for living centrally with no offstreet parking. We have a large front garden but it’s a conservation area so there is no way we will be allowed to drop the kerb and remove the gates etc. Besides, I read too many horror stories of people being blocked in!

We are used to commuters from the outer suburbs dumping their cars here to save a few quid on their commute. Recently, someone has been dumping their 4WD on our road for a week to 10
days at a time without moving it. They always park it right outside someone’s home rather than at the ends of the road. I know it’s only one car but it can make all the difference! We have less than 30
homes on the road.

My neighbour - who has gone away for the weekend - has suggested I leave a ‘strident’ note on the windscreen. She forgot to before she left but I know wouldn’t hold back!

My view is it is really annoying but they're within their legal rights to do this.

What - if anything - would you say?

For the purposes of the vote, the question is should be: is it unreasonable to leave a note?
yes: don’t leave note, they’re doing nothing wrong or no: it’s not illegal but as a courtesy they shouldn’t dump their car here.

The downsides and costs of moving house outweigh the parking annoyance for me right now.

As long as it's taxed, it's not "dumped", it's legally parked so leaving a note, whatever it says would be fairly shitty behaviour.
You've got three choices really;

1. petition the council to have restrictions on your road too,
2. move,
3. put up with it.

They could live the next road across? Or they could be visiting someone? Even in a permit system you sometimes can’t park in your own road and have to park it a few roads down.

If the wider area doesn’t have permits like you say, then it could definitely be someone from a few roads across.

They’re not paying for a permit, but neither are you? If it was me and I was parked legally and someone left a note, I think it would have the opposite effect!!

I don’t know what the difference between parking your car and dumping it is though. I ‘dump’ my car outside my house (or occasionally on another road if I can’t park on my road) and often don’t move it for weeks as I live in London and don’t need to use it that regularly.

Don't stick a note on it. It's pointless and won't achieve anything.

Yes dump is an emotive word but if you don’t move your car for over a week outside someone else’s house, it is sort of dumping it! The neighbouring roads are more full
of flat conversions and busier whereas this tends to be a road of houses with hardly any flats. Suspect people think - wrongly - it’s safer. (Having been burgled, had cars ransacked and one stolen, it’s not).

I'd be tempted to leave a note.... appreciate it's a public road but its been there a long time

My car has been "dumped" on my driveway for the past week because I haven't needed it. It's pretty common in London for people not to move their cars very often because they aren't used for getting to work. Whenever parking restrictions are put in place, it's always the roads just outside them that get the cars. You need to get your road included if you don't want people parking there. If I parked my car correctly in an unrestricted bay, and came back to a note telling me not to, I would think you were unhinged.

It’s completely legal to park a car on a street. The council canvassed your street about parking restrictions (an expensive exercise) and the majority said no. Your only option is to ask the council again - and possibly to canvass just your street only - but they’re unlikely to want to pay for this again. It would be unreasonable to leave a note.

I wouldn't leave a note. I assume (since you haven't mentioned otherwise) that they're parked legally. They've done nothing wrong. I really really don't understand people who are bothered by this. And I don't have a driveway either and don't always get parking outside my house.
It's akin to not getting a seat on a train - mildly annoying but I'm not entitled to it more than anyone else so I wouldn't criticise anyone who is sitting down.

I'm guilty of this, dumping my car on the road for the past 10 weeks. It'll likely remain dumped for a further 3 to 6 months. I had an accident and am unable to drive. But it's taxed and insured and I'd be mightily pissed off if some busybody decided to leave a note on it.

Yes dump is an emotive word but if you don’t move your car for over a week outside someone else’s house, it is sort of dumping it!

No it's not. Because - once again for those in the back - you have no legal rights whatsoever over the road outside your house. In the absence of parking restrictions, t's owned by someone who lives in the next street, someone who lives four boroughs over, and someone who lives in Manchester just as much as it's owned by you. It's a public street. It's for the public to use.