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 agree about sterile looking concrete gardens. We have a lawn front and back. Why people prefer paved over just makes me feel they prefer it looking soulless and drab.

I also agree there are too many cars. I gave up mine 2 years ago. Bliss. Ds has a car but 1 car per household looks much tidier on the drive.

I do accept that cars are often needed for people's jobs.

Buses here only go to the city centre and places between here and city centre. Before pandemic, buses were every 10 mins and the one to the city hospital, every 20 mins.

Now it’s every 15-20 mins and the bus to the city hospital is hourly! If need to go to that city centre hospital, we drive 1.5-2 miles, park down a side street and get buses which are every 5 mins and all go past the hospital

Our neighbour's garden looks awful. Decking plus a tiny artificial lawn and most of the small garden dominated by their garage. A few pots of half dead plants dotted about it just looks terrible!

I agree. Cars, bins, concrete instead of lawns, trees, pavements you can walk along. It's such a shame. I'm in a fairly new build and every house has two parking spaces, either on their own drive or at the end of their garden, and yet so many of them park half on the pavement at the front to save themselves a 5 yard walk. The big bins are a problem for people in small terraced houses. I don't know what the answer is. Ideally, we'd have underground rubbish chutes, fantastic joined up public transport and we'd all have a little jet pack - but I don't think that's going to happen!

Luckily in London in lots of central boroughs with new build you don’t get a parking space or a right to a permit for on street parking.

theyre obviously close / right next to transport links. I think this is the future, better transport links and encourage cycling. It’s too much the roads are a nightmare

I don’t no. I also didn’t have it in the suburban commuter town I used to live in. Suburbs that were built with no shops, pubs, green spaces or enough parking spaces.

I live in my own and used to do the same (rucksack and carrier bags) but now I live further from the supermarket it's not feasible. Now I go to the supermarket in the car just once a week and walk to local shops if I need anything else. However, I couldn't have managed that way when I was working full time and shopping for a family.

Our front garden is concreted over. When I retire and we no longer need the extra car it will be dug up and made a garden. We bought it like this but I can’t wait for it to be gone.

I agree, OP. An eyesore.

There are few things on mn more likely to make people touchy and defensive than being called out in their over dependence on multiple cars, especially for short journeys.

It’s one of those issues where everyone believes it’s someone else’s problem to solve because they have a unique reason why they can’t give up using a car for short journeys. Yet they moan endlessly about congestion, pollution, global warming etc. This thread is full of them (people with disabilities aside of course).

And work vans on every bloody pavement. I couldn't have done my previous job without a car, and I couldn't travel to any of the places I regularly go to now without one. What happened to 30 minute cities - providing things you need close by?

Bins aren't put back for days. They blow over with the slightest bit of wind, and rubbish blows everywhere when the truck empties them, but we don't get the streets swept anymore either. We have four, and we're getting a new one next April.

It's time as well though. I mean, I wouldn't drive a ten minute walk, but after a ten hour work day, I'm not going to walk 1.2 miles for food.

Keynes would turn in his grave at the hours people are working nowadays.

I am lucky as I work from home. I got Sick of driving and Thursdays I take a day off catch the bus up to town do my local food shopping and then take a taxi to come home. Now ds is an adult a car is no longer needed. The buses are very good in my area. In any case I simply could no longer afford a car since the cost of living crisis. The less bills I have to pay out for the better. I can walk 20 mins to Tesco Express the local Co Ok and the surgery.

I don’t complain about any of those things 🤷‍♀️

The issue is the way society has developed - it’s not the fault of individual people who find themselves reliant on their cars.

And do you use your car for journeys that you could walk? I don’t expect you’ll say you do, even if you do.

This is exactly what I mean, everyone has a reason why they are not the problem. In your case it’s because you don’t moan about congestion. So you don’t fit my description. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, I do, and quite happily admit to it as well.

I don’t even particularly like driving but there are so many instances where it’s the more convenient option.

I think I'm used to squeezing past cars taking up all the pavement at this point, even though I live in a very foot friendly area with great public transport.

I would love to see some wheelie bins though!
They aren't possible here (all terraces that open directly onto the street). It means that every week people put out black bags that are ripped apart by cats and foxes and the streets are awash in rotting food and used nappies.
Give me a nice tidy wheelie bin instead and I'd be happy!

But that’s where the middle class people lived. The working classes lived in places like the photo posted showing little better than slums, ie vast estates of terraced houses that certainly weren’t on wide leafy streets.

Nail on the head. Lack of planning by councils is the main problem, ie allowing prof huge retail parks with no requirements to be on a bus route! It took nearly 20 years before buses started going via our huge Asda that was built in the late 80s between two large towns in green belt. No one lived near enough to walk!

Family across from us, mum dad and two young adults. A car each. They have a garage and a car port. Garage has been converted into a gym and the car port has a work van on it so 5 vehicles. Parking is a nightmare.

My FIL lives in a new build flat in Edinburgh and yes there is a communal bin storage room. And it’s absolutely disgusting - burst open bin bags, all kinds of other rubbish dumped, it’s never cleaned, the doors don’t shut properly so animals get in. This just wouldn’t happen where I am, it just wouldn’t be acceptable as a civilised way to live.

In France every apartment building has a board of residents who meet regularly and get all this stuff sorted, because it’s in all their interests. They pay for a cleaner / caretaker, they get things like broken doors replaced, leaks fixed, lightbulbs replaced, lifts serviced and repaired. they jointly decide on any big improvements and they deal with any tenants that aren’t following the rules. It has been a revelation to me to see how communal living can be managed well after years living in flats in Edinburgh where basically no one gave a shit about the communal areas.

Have friends who don't have a car. They buy no more than two bags for life worth of shopping when visit supermarket on the way back home from work, twice a week.

Then within 3 days of pay day, they have an online delivery from a supermarket with heavy and bulky things. Namely tins, bottles of fabric conditioner, loo rolls (as more economical to buy 16/24 rolls than 4) etc. Plus an opportunity to purchase a few things which the supermarket they use doesn't stock. such as different flavour yoghurts etc.

wbeAsensible1 · Today 06:43
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

Why don’t you get it repaired? If it’s a private building isn’t there a residents association? or if it’s a council or landlord property they should repair the damage.

And yet more “it’s everyone else that’s the problem, not me!” masquerading as “it’s society’s fault, not mine”.

I’d bet my mortgage that most people moaning that their street looks a mess, littered with cars, have multiple cars themselves. And those multiple cars that they “neeeeeeed” are not the problem, it’s their neighbours cars. Or visitors, or the council.

We are all part of the problem in this car reliant society. And people don’t want to make one tiny compromise in their own lives or to their own convenience, but they expect everyone else to.