To expect commuters to park in a carpark rather than outside my house?

[feelingabitfestive]

bought my house a couple of years ago. Like every other house in the street, everyone with a car has to park on the street. None of us has a garage or driveway. This didn't bother me much when we bought the house, as we only have one small car which we use at weekends, the rest of the time dh and I catch the train to work.

What does annoy me and sends my blood pressure spiralling is the fact that commuters take full advantage of the fact my street is a 10 minute walk to the train station, by parking up every morning. There is ample station car parking but it costs about £3 a day, hence why people park for free in my road. Every morning commuters in their cars arrive in droves to park for the day. What upsets me is the fact that DH and I made the choice to buy a house near town, so that we can walk to the train station. We could have bought a nicer, cheaper house outside of town and do what everyone else does, ie park in my road, but we didnt. I feel angry that the commuters who park in my street are benefitting from living somewhere nicer than me ie outside of town and yet benefit from my street.

Was on the train coming home last week and almost lost it. There were 2 blokes having a chat. First bloke says to his mate "do you want a lift home, I'm parked in the station carpark?". His friend says "no thanks, I've parked for free in xxxxxx road, it's very convenient". I end up confronting the bloke and getting myself in a sticky situation.

Everyone else including my dh tells me to just accept this is the way things are, but morally surely this is wrong!

My first time posting here

I'm afraid I agree with the majority. YABU.

If your 85 year old neighbour needs a disabled parking bay she can apply for one.

For the rest, the price you paid for your house factored this in, unless the restricted parking in other streets has come in since you moved. Unfortunately it is one of the things you need to consider when you buy a house.

We have only on-street parking and it is a pain. But our house was cheaper because of it.

I have exactly the same problem, and everyday it winds me up when i have to park 3 streets away thus causing problems for the people in that street. We are in the process of getting residents parking permits, perhaps you should approach your council and speak to others on your street, you may have to pay, but if its a solution to the problem....

I can sympathise, but think YAB a little bit U. We moved house due to parking issues- we had off-street parking for 2 cars, but our neighbours kept blocking us in, and refused to move their car(s) when we asked them politely It was causing us so much stress and stirring up bad feeling, so we moved to a house where we have ample parking, and no on-road parking is possible (single-track road!) Bit drastic, but it was winding us up so much it was worth it!

Maybe you could write to your local paper- there have been lots of similar letters in our local rag recently. maybe if the council could be persuaded to make the station car-park free/ a lot cheaper to attract people to park and ride?

It's such a pain commuting to a station with the parking. DH pays £6 a day as I said. It wouldn't be so bad if there were other options.

There is a bus that he can get, but it's about £2 a day I think for one way, and it's extremely unreliable in terms of when it goes past our stop, sometimes earlier than it's supposed to, sometimes way later, so DH can't rely on it if he needs to get a certain train.

Plus the last bus home is at some ridiculously early hour like 6pm. Most people arriving at the station near us are coming in from London, so even if they are lucky enough to finish work at 5, there's no way they'd be actually getting into the station any earlier than 6.30.

Grrr.

Mind you, don't get me started on buses. We live 5 minutes drive from the next town and I always drive. Car parking has just gone up to 50p an hour, which you can claim back from Sainsburys if you spend a fiver.

Our nanny took DS to town on the bus the other day, as a treat. Not only did they have to wait for ages, but it cost them £2. There is no incentive whatsoever for people to leave their car at home.

YANBU!

We have to pay for parking in our street, about £60 a year.

I have noticed for a while that the street between us and the station ALWAYS has cars parked on the footpath, so that if you have a buggy or a wheelchair (for instance) you have to walk on the road.

This has p*d me off no end, so I rang up the council to ask if this was legit, and they told me that the local residents voted to have their street "unenforced"!

I resent the fact that I pay to park right outside my house, and commuters get to park their cars, on a footpath!, for free, with no penalty....

And apparently local residents can "vote" to have their street unenforced, but can't vote to go from enforced to unenforced....

Where my brother lives down south, they have station car parking at £6 a day or £24 for the week, and then on a lot of the local roads they have pay and display parking of £2 per day between the hours of 10am and 12pm weekdays, so if you are a commuter, then you have to pay to park there, although it is a little cheaper than the station car park. Several different streets have different times, but they have a residents permit which allows them to park there for free. He says that some people park their car in their road, get a foldable bike out of their boot and cycle to the station, leaving the bike at the lock-up at the station - thus saving time by having to walk, and saving money not paying to park at the station - which is not ideal for the locals really!

"And apparently local residents can "vote" to have their street unenforced, but can't vote to go from enforced to unenforced...."

yes you can
Our street allowed parking from 7pm till 10 am. The council changed it to double yellow lines. Pretty much everyone on our street signed a letter asking it to be changed back and it was

Double yellow lines are a pita. That was the council's suggested solution to the nightmare parking situation round here. Well, let's put in double yellow lines then? How exactly will that help? Then we'd all have nowhere to leave our cars overnight

If you can't afford a house with a driveway - tough. It's a public road.

Stop bleating and work harder so you can afford to live somewhere better.

If the biggest worry in your life is parking, then you have it **ing easy. Stop whining and be grateful for what you've got, otherwise shut up.

Get over it, love.

at kipling and doesnotmatter. I've raised an issue I'm genuinely interested in hearing responses on. I do not expect to be insulted. This is a discussion forum. If you do not like the issue I have raised then do not comment on it. I fail to see how comments like "get over it" are at all constructive.

Kipling- for your information my dh works a 70 hour week for us, doing 2 jobs, and I work 36 hours a week crammed into 3 days. We both commute for 3 hours to our respective jobs and work bloody hard. Oh and I also have 2 dcs to look after. How dare you say work harder. Am disgusted with your attitude.

Quite frankly I wish I hadn't bothered posting. I thought this was a discussion forum but it seems to be a few "regulars" who enjoy being rude and insulting. You are not very nice people at all. It's a shame as mumsnet is generally such a welcoming place, but many people who hang out in this section to pass judgement, are bring the whole website down.

If anyone else has any nasty comments to make please don't bother as I wont be reading or posting any more threads.

Thanks to everyone who has posted thoughtful and informed comments, they have been useful even if I didn't necessarily agree with you!

don't be cross about the arseholes
they'd back an opposing point of view just to be difficult, it's just a bit of mindless argumentation for them

hope the holidays are better on the parking front

Ignore, festive, ignore.

Ignore grumpiness. T'is an AIBU thread, after all.

If you'd said "AIBU in wishing they'd park elsewhere", I'd say YANBU! But, since you 'expect' it, I have to say YABU... Sorry - I know how annoying it must be. When househunting recently a specific issue for us was to have our own space/drive/garage, regardless of expense.

The real villains of the tale are, on the whole, car-park owners, who see car-parks as a licence to print money (although, TBH, £3 per day as the OP states seems quite reasonable - round here parking is prohibitively expensive).

Obviously, we should all be dropping our cars in favour of more environmentally friendly alternatives, but until the local authorities offer viable alternatives, people will continue to use their cars.

I always use the bus (or walk) myself, but many's the time I've stood freezing at the bus stop wishing, waiting for a late bus, wishing I was in the car...

No, you're not interested in people's opinions, you just wanted everyone to agree how terrible commuters are in daring to park outside your house. On a piece of road you don't own.

My point was reasonable: if the biggest stress in your life is that somebody parks outside your house during the day, when you're at work, then you have a very charmed life.

Obviously though, I'm an 'a-hole' for expressing this, whereas it's perfectly normal for you to aggresively confront somebody because they parked on a public road.

i'd be very annoyed at commuters parking outside my house and would put bananas up their exhausts

"Stop bleating and work harder so you can afford to live somewhere better"

And that was reasonable was it?

you realised this before you bought the house and still bought it.

caveat emptor, IMO.

it's a public road.

don't like it? move and buy that bigger house outside town.

WHY buy such a place, though, south?

people park in the road all along DD1's school/nursery.

it's no secret.

there's plenty for sale on that road, but i'd never buy it because i wouldn't want to live in a road people use as a car park.

i'd buy somewhere else because we want a driveway.

makes NO sense to get angry over a situation that you knew was the case and you bought there anyhow.

we live off a High Street with 4 free carparks and still get shoppers. I have a disabled bay painted outside my house (for me and dd) but the council painted it shorter than the car. If I go out I come back to find people parked up to the bay on both sides so even by physically picking the car up and popping it in sideways wouldn't work. Or they park in half the bay.
Try being a poor walker with a child in a wheelchair and not being able to park. Its cosa the free carparks are 4cm further than our road and people are lazy feckers.
And right now our road is blocked off bya building site and the builders park down the middle of the road so I spend 10 minutes trying to find them all on the site to get them to move.

NMC - if someone half parks in your bay you can ring the council up to clamp them or two them away. they won't do it again

Festive - all you can do is keep campaigning for resident's parking.

If you only use the cars at weekends - get rid of it!

And stay at home at the weekend!

"work harder so you can afford to live somewhere better"

Yeah, because that always works.

You have absolutely no idea how hard it is for residents who live in a road near a station, selfish commuters parking everyday for up to 9 hours and sometimes go off on holiday and leave their car, families live here and have to park streets away with young children shopping etc, why can’t they get the bus to the station, we have tried numerous times to get permit parking !