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?

Wheelie bins would be an attractive upgrade compared to our system of many hessian sacks!

No I was thinking more like this. I don’t live in a city. I was referring to suburbia. Thanks

When we lived in Tokyo you needed to prove you had a proper parking space before you could buy a car. No space, no car. One space, one car. No on-street parking allowed for this purpose. Worked very well!! Would be reasonably easy, albeit very unpopular, to implement here. I’m surprised it’s not been implemented in London yet!

My new build 3/4 bed came with a garage too narrow for most cars (aka storage) and one parking space, its first come first served on the residential car park, however 2 of our dc have cars! Everyone has at least 2 cars, done have 4 (mine have now left home)

If only suburbia looked like this now, I’m sure it would help everyone’s mental health to arrive home to a calm and uncluttered environment rather than cars and bins everywhere, a previous poster was correct there are far too many people crowded into small spaces and it’s only going to get worse, it’s depressing.

I agree that on 'then and now' photo comparisons the streets looked so much nicer without cars everywhere.
I really think we should make more of an effort to reduce car numbers and it might take the form of more lift-shares, local jobs and hobbies as well as public transport and active travel. We recently became a one-car family and it has been a good catalyst to exercise more, walking and cycling. There are always taxis and supermarket deliveries for the tricky times.

Yes. I’m not from the UK and one of my first impressions of the housing was OMG the rubbish bins have pride of place.

When we were house hunting we ruled out whole streets because the bins lived permanently out on the pavements. It was really unsightly, and a PITA to push a buggy along those streets with the massive bins everywhere. Also so many people are rank when it comes to their own bins and overfill them so the lids don't shut, or overfill them then pile up more rubbish next to them. I can't be dealing with that especially in the height of summer

The French have an astonishingly poor record of household recycling. They have some of the lowest recycling levels across Europe. I don’t think that they are a standard to live by sadly. I used to work in a multidisciplinary team for an Energy from Waste (incineration) project, and French stats were appalling back 15-20 years ago, for a project that would up and running now. Age and apartment living contributed significantly to the low separation of recyclable goods, and also their easy access to fossil fuels (national).

Depends what you’re buying I suppose. I don’t mind walking to the shops for a small amount of items but I’m not lugging my weekly shop back 3/4 on foot, couldn’t even if I wanted to!

I live 10 minutes walk to work (my DP works even closer)

10 minutes walk to the station with a half hour train every ten minutes to London.

I can walk to two cinemas and a theatre in about 12 minutes.

city centre is 8 minutes walk away.

I have 40+ pubs within a 15 minute walk (yes I’ve counted!)

my doctor is 20 minutes walk -8 by bike. The hospital is on a frequent bus route

The gym is next door

Two Big supermarkets 6 and ten Minutes walk.

my bins are communal (no worry about forgetting bin day) and we separate paper and card, glass, metal and plastic

we have one car between two people, it moves maybe once a week.

City centre living. It’s the future.

Private car ownership is slowly reducing in some parts of the world, not everyone needs a car

City-centric living doesnt require cars

Exactly. I’ve never used my cars less than when I’ve lived in a city. I think it’s suburban living that’s the problem. Not cities.

Well yes it does look terrible but that’s modern life for you. As more and more families have two working parents it is more likely that families will have two cars. And grown kids, who are now more likely to be living at home due to rising house prices/rent, may also have a car! Our streets and houses aren’t designed for it. So many people also don’t have time for maintaining a garden anymore so are more likely to have it all landscaped with more concrete and wood than green space. Front gardens are monoblocked over to create space for the extra cars, that’s if you are lucky enough to have your own drive, many in inner cities don’t.
The bins, I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me too much if they are kept tidy and not overflowing. I don’t think I would like having to keep them at the front of the house though. I’m lucky to have a side gate and wide enough path to keep mine round the back, but again I know many don’t.

Aren’t house prices more expensive though? Plus I’m not sure this is true for families with children unless there is easy and close access to parks and green spaces. I like that my child can play outside with her mates and the streets aren’t too busy.

@Emmz1510 I live literally in a park with a playground and skate park in sight of my living room window. I think cities have more (or as least as much) green space than the average suburb.

It’s evidence that everything wasn’t perfect and sparkly, yes.

This is what I feel like as I live at the bottom of a small dead end street of 14 houses, the ones across from 7 of them, there is not one bit of grass or greenery, all front gardens have been mono blocked or slabbed over. So I just look out at what looks like a car park with neighbours caravan parked too. There used to be visitors spaces one for each house but of course the have all been taken by the houses too. One of the neighbours had just built a large extension on their semi (ok it’s the same size as the one we built years ago but our house is detached big difference) it means they can’t have their bins in their back garden as they can’t fit them round the side of their house (extension is tight up to the fence) so they’ve have to build bin storage in their front garden.

I think it’s sad and just modern life no greenery, fake grass or everything slabbed over. Nothing growing. Then I have my other neighbour who whinges and complains about my cherry blossom trees every year, it’s a few days they shed!

I can walk onto the moors and into forest from the edge of my suburb, from my front door, I doubt you have that, and it's so hilly I can see the nearest city, low down and cramped and smoggy looking

Agree. I value a tidy frontage. When we moved into our current house in a small town, I straightaway moved the bins from the driveway into our garage. I also started removing the stones (and leaves and sticks) from the 'easy care' garden spaces and planting flowers and trees.

We have 2 cars as we both work, the public transport is infrequent and we don't have family nearby who can help with rides so we are just on our own. A car hardly fits in the tiny garage. It is a future project to knock down the garage and replace it with a usable one.

Agree. I’m only talking about city apartments / streets. I used to live in Edinburgh, lovely old stone-built tenements and big wide cobbled streets which could look lovely… but instead they are crammed with cars and enormous black communal bins and wow they are ugly, especially now that they are all bashed and chipped.

i live in France now. Every appartement block here - old and new - has an internal bin cupboard / room where the bins are kept, and they are only taken out to the street on collection day. Each building employs a cleaning service to do this as part of their daily clean - sweep and mop the communal spaces and take the bins out. What a civilised way to live communally.

Oh, come on - it’s not that hard to understand, is it?
Because public transport might not take you to where you need to go.
Because employment isn’t always between 9am and 5pm, so public transport doesn’t cover the time people need to travel.
Because some jobs require the employees to change location during the day (E.g. Cleaners or carers working in many people’s homes)
Because if you have three (or more)working adults living under one roof and their jobs are in 3+ different places not served by buses or trains, they’ll need to drive.
In short: because not everyone has the same situation as you!

Absolutely agree, this is why I always park mine in my underground revolving car garage and have Jeeves bring the bins straight in after collection.

Our building has a bin store and the bin men broke the door off so now it’s open to the elements and the animals.

we luckily have lots of trees but you still see the escaped recycling making its way down the street in a windy day