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?

Not round here you can’t 😬 unless you’re super fit and can cycle up a hill in a NSL zone with no pavements or lights - in which case, go right ahead 🤣

Yep, but they’re not always convenient in terms of availability.

Availability is the same online or in person

So all the families and households in the uk who live without cars are utter fools?

Slightly off topic, but I removed my paved drive and turned it into an enclosed garden and have planted a willow tree in the middle of the garden. We live on a Close and the rest of it is all gravel, concrete and resin drives with no plants apart from next door who has a massively overgrown magnolia tree on her gravel drive - it overhangs mine and blocks sunlight after 3pm but I don't care to be honest, it gives me privacy and it's nice watching the birds in it and it was actually her tree that inspired me to plant my tree.

Courier drivers always comment on my garden though and say it's so nice to see a garden instead empty drives. Another plus point is I now get a lot of wildlife including a rare Ring Ouzel into my garden daily and it helps with drainage - we used to get huge standing puddles that just got bigger and bigger when we had the paving and now get no puddles at all.

I do accept though, that I'm lucky enough to be able to do this - not everyone can - I have access at the back to hide my ugly (6) bins away and we also have a garage.

Nope. Our online food shop comes from a store 40 miles away, not the one half a mile up the road.

It is an excellent idea, but isn't it only practical for retired people or families with one SAHP? Like you say, it isn't 1950s where SAHP strolls to the school with DC, then strolls to Co-Op to get dinner. While other parent (usually dad, lets be honest) gets on his bike to cycle to his job, or to the railway station.
Unless you are in London with excellent transport links it is just not possible to work full time and do nursery/ wrap around drop off and pick up on public transport.
Not everyone works in an office either. Tradespeople need vans, everyone hates them outside their house but not everyone has a garage big enough, or a drive.

They exist, do a property search, loads for sale and rent.

If you have cars, you need garages. no car no need for a garage. You take your pick.

Tell me how I am wrong?

You live in fantasy land my dear 🤣

It's mandatory for me to have 4 bins. Oh, for the halcyon days when I had only one, stored round the back...and the bin men carried it out for me.

Now 65 and have to store them in the front garden because manoeuvring them round from the back would be too much for me.

They're partially concealed by a high hedge so not too much of an eyesore from the pavement, but I'm still trying to figure out an easily accessible bin store to hide them from my side.

What have you been drinking? Houses with drives/garages are usually a lot more expensive so lots of people simply can't afford them. Not to mention high demand/low supply which means some "naice" areas have very few houses on the market. There's a reason why people live in congested streets - it's because they're the affordable homes, cheaper priced because of lack of drives/garages and the state of the roads!

Well, strictly speaking we have a garage but we never used it for the car as it was at the end of a longish narrow drive. It’s now a home office/woman cave.

I agree - when I first moved into my new build 30 years ago it was bare of vehicles and we only had one wheelie bin. It’s a mixture of bungalows, semi’s and detached, 2, 3 & 4 beds. It was either elderly couples or young families who parked their one or two cars on the garage or drive. Everyone had a two car option. Now the young families have grown and some houses have 4 or 5 cars each and we have 4 wheelie bins each. I’m fortunate to have space for 4 cars so there is space for visitors but now it just looks like a car park. I do accept the situation as it’s just how things are now but just miss how nice it used to look

The idea of a 15-minute town is that work/childcare/shops are all within a 15 minute walk. Most of the journeys, if done by car, would take longer than 15 minutes. (I live in a 15-minute town, not by any modern design, but it's enabled us to ditch a car and we just have one car now.)

Isn't that part of the problem. Even those with garages are using them as an office or storage when they own a car... Crazy.

@Pistachioitaliano I live in a house with a garage. The house was built in 1984. My 11 year old Audi A1 will fit into the garage if the wing mirrors are folded in but once in the garage there is no way to get out of the car. So I park on my driveway, which is large enough for 2 cars and there's still garden to one side. The only car housed in a garage where I live is the classic car from the 1960s as its the only car that fits in whilst still allowing the driver to get out! A new build estate close by has 'parking for 2 cars' - one in the garage and one on the drive in front of the garage. So there will always be car shuffling. Another estate decided to be more environmentally friendly - every house has parking for 1 car regardless of if it's a 2 bed or a 5 bed.... All the 2nd and 3rd cars are parked on neighbouring roads because there are no public transport links and it's several miles from any shops, schools or GPs. Stupid planning....

How can you have a regional or national office of a large business/organisation within 15 minutes of your home or a power station or car plant or warehouse?? Lots of people have commutes of an hour or more. I suppose it's OK if you work in a shop, restaurant, pub, school, etc., as you "may" find somewhere to work that close.

Yes living in a car park is a very good description @Happyher, my little cul de sac looks lovely when there are no cars but that’s very rare these days.

We have a garage too but it’s tiny and can’t actually fit a modern sized car in it. Our driveway can just about fit my small Hyundai but if DH parks his work car/van there, it blocks our path (so we can’t get the bins out) and hangs over onto the back street which blocks the bin wagons.

I take it you've never tried to get a modern car into a modern garage. They just don't fit!

Ours will fit but then you’re trapped in the car 🤣

How does distance affect availability if its being delivered

When I moved into my estate 30 years ago the builders planted a tree in every front garden. I got 3 and they’re beautiful now but everyone else dug them up over the years. It would have been a beautiful tree lined avenue now

I meant delivery slot availability - it has to fit around work and being rural, we don’t get much choice. Most supermarkets won’t even deliver here everyday, let alone at all hours of the day.