To think cars and wheelie bins are big factors in why a lot of areas look terrible?

[Netamount]

Cars are everywhere - households with two or three. Front gardens concreted over, walls demolished to create parking. Streets double parked. New build estates (that should know better) with inadequate parking, so cars are everywhere. Narrow streets and attractive buildings demolished for relief roads and widening.

Most UK houses weren’t built with four massive bins in mind. Many don’t have easy access to the street from the back, so they have to be kept at the front, and look awful.

I’ve no solutions really (I have a car and four bins too), just wondering what other people thought?

No.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that people don’t need cars, thats our modern life, it’s just a fact that it makes everywhere look bloody awful.

It's true. I walked along the road I grew up on (in the 1970's) a few weeks ago. Back then, every house had a lovely front garden; grass, shrubs, trees and flowers. A few people had dedicated a small area of their front garden to a driveway for their 1 family car. All those beautiful front gardens have gone now, paved over with multiple cars parked.

Depends on the area.

Where I live I walk everywhere and our new build estate is attractive because it sits right outside the town centre close to one of the railway station and there are buses that take you directly to the town centre and Oxford including the JR Hospital . There are two proper shops (M&S Food and Tesco) under 20 min walk away. Three small shops under 10. Town centre is 20 min walk. Pubs under 10 minutes. Two nursery not including the one the primary school has. It is also leafy, plenty of places for people to use their bike, scooter, run, play sports, lots of little play parks built in, etc. There’s also a 24 hour gym under 10 minutes walk away, schools under 10 minutes, secondaries under 20 minutes. We were lucky we moved here because moving here now would be out of our price range.

There are complaints about parking but it’s usually due to drivers being inconsiderate and parking in ways that force pedestrians off paths and make the buses go around when it is obvious they are near a bus stop.

We have a 4 bed and two parking spots that came with ours but DH is the only one that drives. Our middle likely won’t be driving for another decade, and the youngest is 18 months.

Our last house was not a new build and parking was horrendous as was the bin situation since the street was already narrow and with parking it made it even worse, part of the reason DH wanted to move especially with people choosing to park on our drive and buggering off and leaving him to park somewhere else. He called the cops and nothing could be done. We did have a large back garden but the whole street itself did look awful.

At my in-laws they have issues with people who choose not to park on their own drives and park on the street, ongoing issue for years, area is more rural but has good transport links.

Think you could have the right number of parking spots and there will always be people who would complain that it’s not enough.

We are retired (well DH still works a bit but at home) and still, have two cars. Both over 10 years old. We don’t really need two cars and will go down to one at some point but for now we’re keeping them. I know people who have regretted going down to one car after retirement. We did manage with one for about fifteen years when we were working.

We live on a new build estate and thankfully on our street most houses have large drives. We do have neighbours who have a double garage and space for four cars on their drive but there are four cars (they have three adult children living there) and as they run a business from home there are also two transit sized work vans and a trailer. That’s before their daughters’ boyfriends stay over and need to park somewhere too.

Exactly.

Cycling isn't a real mode of transport, It's a hobby.

At best it can take a person (slowly) a short distance, that's it. It isn't safe, convenient or practical. And the UK climate means that for the majority of the year it's just a stupid waste of everyone's time. Not to mention the entitlement of someone who thinks it's fine to dawdle along, holding up all the traffic, just because they want to play their hobby on a public road.

Imagine if we had sensible urban planing, adequate shops near to residential areas, sufficient public transportation. The country would look a lot different. I was on the radio talking about the area I grew up in and there was a lot about how reliant we are on cars and how that ended up happening. Take a listen if you're interested: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00291pq

Also new builds builders don’t measure the size of cars. Even my parents’ place built in 2003, they can park their VW Golf in the garage but unable to open the door to get out of the car. That’s with nothing on the sides.

What absolute nonsense. This is the sort of comment I expect to read on the Daily Mail website.

We have 1 car but bought a 5-bed house with an extra driveway to the side. Second driveway is well designed but only fits a narrow car! Garage is too narrow to fit a modern car, it was built 40 years ago. We're planning to convert garage into a playroom at some point as it's mostly storage now.

I think life has changed so much since the 80s, eg adult children tend to live at home longer. Our neighbour has 3 adult children at home, so 5 cars (2 parked on road). It other bothers me if they have guests/boyfriends staying, as they often park opposite our driveway and block us from getting out! But neighbours are lovely and always tell their visitors to move the cars as soon as they notice.

Neighbours across the road are elderly with 2 adult children at home plus 1 who visits and leaves her car parked on street with their 3 other cars to do school run. It is unsightly but better than many areas.

We're walking distance from train station and shops, but most people can't get to work via train nowadays, unless they take daily taxis the other end, or can manage to connect journey with buses or walking. I used to walk to train station, take train 35mins then walk 30mins to work. It was exhausting! And creepy in dark as the route I walked was a short cut through a park.
I managed it for a year when first child was in nursery, but gave up once had second child.

People should walk more, use public transport or local taxis. If you insist on having multiple cars live in a property with a double garage and/or hire a local garage nearby.

Yes, of course. This is why lots of people move out to the countryside or to a larger house as soon as they can.
Hell is other people (and their stuff).

Where are all these utopias where every house has a drive away or access to a garage?

It’s not nonsense - cycling as a means of regular transport to/from school, work and shops is hugely impractical for the vast majority. It’s unsafe, you arrive sweaty and soaking, you can’t transport much with you and it’s generally slow and inconvenient.

Around here, for example, there are no cycle paths. Most streets aren’t well lit and it’s impossible to pass cyclist safely or even at all. It just causes chaos and is frankly unsafe as cyclists aren’t visible and don’t have a safe route to travel on.

Totally agree with you OP. I think the idea of a '15 minute town' was excellent - but of course it was 'woke' for some reason. Although the same people complaining about that are the same ones who whine 'Why can't we go back to thaaaat?' every time someone posts a 1950s photo on the Facebook town group...

Only if you have shops within 3/4 of a mile of home. Lots of people don't anymore now that the vast majority of small/corner shops have closed down due to supermarkets etc.

I live in an area with houses with drives, so cars are less of a problem - it's a mixture of on-street and off-street and not too busy. But I completely agree about bins. I was thinking of getting some sort of 'bin house' and topping it with a flowerbed. But it's just one more thing to do in a busy life, so it hasn't been done.

Not convenient for the people they inconvenience

that's why you make your house and back garden a pretty oasis of calm from the chaos out front

Supermarkets that deliver

The suburbs where the majority of people live would still be full of cars, vans and bins even if there town was a fifteen minute one.

You can cycle without soaking in sweat, and the more that cycle the safer it will be hir everyone

supermarket deliveries go right to your doorstep

Every single person on this planet does something that’s inconvenient for others 🤷‍♀️

For me, my car is cheap, convenient and a hell of a lot quicker than trying to use public transport. As I said upthread, I can get to my parents in 40 minutes by car - it’s four hours on public transport and costs about ten times as much. A taxi is a similar price as it’s well out of the company’s area.

Only a complete and utter fool would pick public transport over a car. And that’s hardly a rare scenario - especially if you’re transporting a family or multiple people, plus baggage etc.