To think I shouldn’t have to put a traffic cone in my allocated parking space

[thecherryfox]

I live in a newbuild council flat, when I moved here I got two allocated parking spaces - I got the two directly outside the building as I’m disabled and have a disabled child. The council never put lines on the ground or flat numbers on it so the entire carpark is blank and residents, visitors etc are supposed to know who’s space belongs to who despite no markings. As stated, mine are directly outside the building so people often park in BOTH my spaces. The flats opposite only have one allocated space and most have a personal car and work vehicles so they park in our carpark. The houses on the estate send their visitors as they don’t want them to park outside their house. Even visitors of the block just see an empty carpark and aren’t aware it’s allocated

It has been an ongoing battle with the council and they’re refusing to put signage down or do anything about it. They can’t make it a disabled bay as allocated bays trump the disabled space as anyone with a badge could park in it which would mean they’d not be mine anymore.

I brought a parking cone to ‘reserve’ my own parking space and even then, it can only cover one space. I have two spaces and one car and I cannot even have access to my one space most the time. So with the cone, it’s an entire faff. I’m disabled and I’m having to drive forward, get out the car to put the cone down - get back in the car and do the entire process of putting it away when I come home. My rent to the council is over £1k a month which is supposed to include this spaces in the rent charge but if they’re not showing they’re allocated what am I supposed to do?

It’s making me miserable, it’s been an ongoing battle for years, I’ve opened many complaints and they’ve been closed without action. No one is sorting it out and I’m at my wits end- something that should be a normal daily action is putting hardship on my life and making me dread going out. Can anyone offer advice? As stated, I have opened many complaints that have been closed with no action - what else can I do to take it further? I hate playing the ‘disability card’ but it really is making my disability worse in day to day life.

I think you just have to keep sticking cones there unfortunately, even if a sign was put up it would probably be ignored

Can of paint and paint on your flat number?

We had to buy stencils and spray paint and do our own. Makes no sense why it’s not done. Of course in an ideal world people wouldn’t park somewhere they know isn’t theirs but they do!

Our local council have made a space disabled AND allocated a number underneath it for a neighbour. Similar set up of unallocated parking.

So it can be done...

Contact your local councillor. Or the chair of the housing committee.

Another vote for contacting the councillor for your area. They are in office partly to represent and advocate for their constituents. I used to work in local government and we had to take notice when they contacted us.
Failing that, your MP. When they asked us to "jump", the response was "How high?" 💁🏻‍♀️

How annoying. Have a word with some of your neighbours (or put a note through their doors) and see if you can get together to paint in the lines and put your flat numbers in your own spaces. It could be a community exercise! Or better still club together and pay a professional to do it because there will be no end of trouble if some of the bays are different sizes.

Do you actually need both spaces? I would find someone who has two cars and make an unofficial arrangement with them that they can use your spare space ( small fee negotiated) for the smaller of their cars. Then I would find someone to come and mark both “your” spaces with your flat number - just to ensure that officially they are still yours. Get them to do it nicely though! Sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands. This way you know who is parking in your spare space and with any luck most people will respect the markings .