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?

I’ve just brought my five bins in:

1. Food waste
2. Glass and cartons
3. Cardboard
4. plastic bottles, plastic trays, tins, foil
5. Wheelie bin

A lot of bins if you are in a built up area.

Where I live, the 120L (slim) wheelie bins are used for general rubbish and the normal 240L bins are for recycling.

My parents have asked to get a smaller recycling bin as they cannot get the 240L bin down the side. Every resident has bins in their driveway

Not only is the number of bins ridiculous, so is the local rule here that extra recycling presented along with the bin - such as a box of cardboard next to the cardboard bin if it is full - is rejected.

Which rather suggests the point of all these bins is not really to increase recycling levels...

You are right - we are fortunate, and it's a real plus of the area. It's a bit of a SHITE area in some respects, not glamourous, not much culture, lots of retired folk, but everything is very compact. Although we did pick this spot because we both HATE driving (and are terrible drivers) and wanted to be close to amenities.

I guess alot of comes down to the choices we make in life, choosing where to live, and work etc, although not everyone has those choices

YANBU. We live on a London street where one side of the street has paved over the gardens, and the other side has not because it's upward sloping. Guess which side is so much prettier?

I think people don't appreciate the negative effects of the car:

• streets are uglier
• car noise
• air pollution
• children can't play out
• cycling can be dangerous due to impatient car owners who think the roads are only for them
• shops get emptied as people drive to out of town supermarkets
• people get fatter and unhealthier due to all the above.

Far more people now seem to have work vans which they park at home. So for a house with 2 adults they may have 2 cars plus a work van. Those are even worse than cars as it’s inevitably the van that ends up on the road, not the cars which are on the driveway.

My last two houses have been new builds and one thing I’ve noticed is that the allocated parking for each house isn’t always in a sensible place - it might be in a car park area at the backs of the houses. Which means people then just park on the road at the front of their house because it’s easier for them.

It's a bit chicken and egg, though. You do a big shop because you've got a car. It's convenient and something that you choose to do. People with cars inevitably form that habit. If you chose to walk, you would buy less and shop more often. We manage on 2 weekly shops a week for 2 adults & 3 children.

You're not wrong. My village has streets of victorian cottages that were not designed with cars or a throw away society in mind. Living modern lifestyles in homes designed for living centuries ago has spoiled the aesthetics. Not much can be done about it though. People are already encouraged to dispose of less and drive less, but some can't and some won't.

That and the constant road signs that clutter the eye line too.

Look at old photos before cars and it all just looked neat.

I disagree.

Buying smaller items because you are walking from the supermarket is more expensive in the long run. Pack of 4 loo rolls £2. The pack of 16 is £6.40. Beer (Stella) 4 cans of 440ml - £5.50. 18 cans £14

Each of my points is a verifiable fact. Disagree if you like, but I’m not wrong.

I think councils should encourage people away from cars for many reasons (environmental/safety etc) but it will need investment in decent alternatives e.g. on road cycle storage, cycle paths, reliable buses, rental bikes. Our council didn't let us put a bike store in our front garden so the bikes are in the garage a 10-minute walk away. Not a convenient solution if you want to quickly nip out. My son cycles to school so we keep his bike in the front room overnight but there's no way we could fit all 4 bikes there!

Petrol is free?

5 mins on a bike

Because however good public transport is sometimes it doesn’t go where you want/need to go at the time you need it to. Then you need a car. That doesn’t need to happen many times a month before it’s cheaper to own one than hire one every time. And when the car isn’t in use because public transport is working, it remains parked on the road/house frontage. People will use public transport more if it’s good and cheap but it can’t replace a car completely.

YANBU. Too many cars, too many road and business signage, bins etc. Looks cluttered, messy and untidy. It’s lovely to see old footage from the 40’s/50’s where roads look clear and smart.

Like this one you mean?
Honestly the nostalgia for the 50s is getting daft now. It was pretty crap for most people.

So that photo is your proof that life was pretty crap for most people in the 50s?!

Thanks everyone for your comments. I’m glad it’s not just me who thinks this!

We only have one car and are lucky to have a short driveway, and we do keep our bins round the back because we can drag them through the garage out front on bin day. If we were older or had mobility issues, that wouldn’t be an option.

We live on a wide, tree lined street, all
houses are semis built in the 1930s, with grass verges. Thankfully very few houses have needed to remove the front wall due the driveway and decent on street parking.

Most visitors / taxi drivers comment how nice the street is, it makes me wonder why developers don’t follow a similar pattern if it’s so desirable - the answer is, of course, money and profit.

YANBU
Where I live there are very narrow streets , with terraced houses, really close together. In some streets cars already need to park on the pavements on one side, to make the roads passable.

I know people with young babies/children who have to park 3 streets away from their houses.

I've always said that they need to make car parks in the usable spaces around these areas...but no, guess what they're building instead?! More houses 🤦🏻‍♀️

Obviously decisions made by people who don't live in these areas and don't know what it's like. And it's no point complaining to these people as they don't really care.

You would think that planners would plan new build estates with an additional car park, a bit like older flats often have a row of garages. But then a lot of people wouldn't like it because they like to see their car from the window (can see the need of you're disabled or have very young children).

Most of our neighbours have 2-4 cars per house with adults children at home. Public transport outside of the main train line (increasingly unreliable evenings and weekends) and the few main bus routes is unreliable. Also expensive and over crowded . It's a shame, as it probably is partly why kids don't play outside now

I completely agree. Every house on my road has a driveway big enough for 2 cars plus a garage, but the majority of people park on the road anyway leaving the driveway half or completely empty. Lots of people leave their bins out the front cause they CBA to put their bins back in after bin day. It looks like total shite out the front.

An example of one family on my road. They dug out their lovely front lawn, flowerbed and tree when they moved in. It was paved over and then they put two fake trees outside their front door?!