to want to park my car outside someone else's house all day for free?

[ferndalee]

Really annoyed as council has decided to implement a residents parking zone round all the streets near our station. Apparently residents have complained about commuters parking in 'their' street all day for free instead of using the station car park. But the station car park is quite expensive and you have to get there really in the morning to guarantee a parking space.

I really don't understand why residents are annoyed people like me park outside their house during the day? It's not as if we're parked in their front garden or causing a nuisance. I understand that residents probably get annoyed that they might not be able to park their own cars because of commuters but shouldn't they have thought of this before they bough their house? Its a bit like people who live near schools complaining about people parking in their roads for the school pick-up.

The language the council has used in their leaflets is inflammatory as well, they talk about commuters 'dumping their cars for free all day' in these residential streets. This is rubbish as the highways agency own the road not the residents! They have no right to complain!

Would just like to echo EdgarAllanPoo and some others, that residents' parking is a double-edged sword. You often only get one visitor's pass, and can't invite anyone with cars to family parties etc, which is plain daft.

We had a scheme (cheap, but even so), and they had to suspend it because the council was selling hundreds more spaces than were actually available, so it was legally challenged.

That said, the OP does sound ridiculously rude and unmindful of people's feelings.

Firstly, who said anything about town centres? My parents aren't in a town centre. More of a two-cow village that happens to have a station.

And not everyone works 8-6 and is at home from 6-8. Ah, but the OP does, so that's ok then

I live on a road of narrow Victorian houses, bugger all parking. Many many times I come home with dd, shopping, heavy bags etc etc and have to park in the next road and lug everything half a mile up the road. But those are all residents and it's the luck of the draw who gets home first. Annoying but there you go. Commuter parking is different.

Dress it up how you like, it's self centred to expect that you can stick yourself anywhere you like and people just have to suck it up. All because you can't be bothered to get to the car park a bit earlier or pay for the privilege of parking.

In principle YANBU - but your sense of entitlement in the OP stinks.

We lived within walking distance of a station & had permit parking as there was already a severe lack of space in relation to houses.

When we had a baby it was a nightmare (should say that we never had parking outside house, but in side street) as sometimes (pre permits) we would have to walk quite a way to the car (with baby/paraphernalia) because some lazy tight commuter decided their need was greater than my babies need to be able to get in the car relatively easily/quickly. Was dreadful in the winter!

I am pleased that the local council have done this, residents pay council tax & they pay road tax, so imo YES, they are fully entitled to complain that they cannot use the parking facilities nr their homes.

"If the parking at the station has to be paid for, that is more than likley to do with the train operating company and not the local council"

This is true to some extent by the train operators do not set the station car park charges. That is left to the owners of the station car park. Station parking charges here now cover weekends and bank holidays. I can remember a time not so long ago when these times (I am thinking Sundays and Bank holidays in particular) were free.

The station car parks are indeed owned and operated by NCP or some such parking company. The council owned car parks are separate but how can they still justify charging everyone 80p per hour to park?. Its madness to charge so much, this has had a deleterious effect on passing trade and it has been reported in the local press that this is indeed the case. Also with other towns near here offering cheaper or even free parking by the hour or out of town supermarkets and retail parks offering free parking people do vote with their feet.

As mentioned before the commuters who arrived "late" into the station car parks complained that they could not park. Car park company sense a goldmine and take advantage. One of the station car parks (the nearest one) now has primarily premium parking in it for which of course those people pay extra (not just £50 extra per year mind on top, around about £400!).

Am awaiting the start of construction proper with regards to Crossrail. That will be a real bunfight.

As mentioned before no one solution brought in will solve all the problems.

At our previous address our road was fine. No resident parking scheme, no problem finding a space outside our house etc. That was until they introduced a scheme around the roads near the station. Lo and behold the drivers then spilled onto our grid and caused mayhem for us.
Within a few months we were forced to have a resident parking scheme as well. So having to pay to ensure that we could park outside (within reason) our own house.
I do partly blame the councils because they obviously honed in on a very lucrative tax and did everything they could to cast their nets widely. However the OP's tone was that of one who probably could care less 'as long as I'm alright jack!'
So YABU!

Any sign of the OP recently? No? What a surprise.

My DH takes the train to work - he walks to the station - 20 mins in all weathers - we spent money on a good coat for him. The carpark at the station was free until 12 months ago, then the train company (yes, definitely the train company) decided to charge for it. It was a reasonable sized carpark, usually not totally full. Now, all the commuters are parking on the nearby streets rather than pay and bin lorries, buses etc are struggling to get through. Our local councillors have been lobbying to get the carpark charges removed as all they have done is drive the cars out onto the streets. I agree that, given that we are trying to reduce car use, charging for the carpark is counterproductive.

I can see both sides of the argument - the commuters could not have budgeted for their carparking charges as the carpark has always been free up till now, though I do see people driving shorter distances than my DH walks. Equally, the residents need to be able to move freely around the local area. For our area, taking the sodding parking charges away again would sort it all out.

When I lived in North London, we were near a station so that my DH could walk to the train. I could not use public transport (my job involved a lot of travelling) so had a car. It was the shit parking by the commuters that really drove me mad - frequently you could have fitted 3 cars in the space taken up by 2 (since the poor sods couldn't manage to parallel park on a curved road - learn to drive your car properly then!) and they frequently blocked driveways. I did see my neighbour use his Range Rover to gently bump a little Fiesta off his access one day (though why he had a RR in North London is a whole other arguement - at least he had a drive to park it in!).

It can cause allsorts of difficulties you don't know about.

We live in a similar area and we have disbaled children; if i come back from shopping with ds3 & ds4 and shopping and have to aprk away, then I lhave to elave the shopping to defrost in the car as they nboth need holding carefully (DS4 toddler,ds3 ASD)

DH has spent over an hour on occasion after a night shift trying to find a parking space, why is that fair?

Perhaps as well tehy are n't targetting you, maybe they sdon't know who you are? maybe it's the tossers like the one yesterday who aprked 1ft from my front door meaning I had to abandon my buggy on the road? There's always a surfeit of thsoe and they can be incredibly annoying

Totally as an aside...

IMO these resident permit things are money spinners for the council as much as to help out residents.

You have to pay for residents permints to park outside your house.

Result? Everyone has bulldozed their front gardens and paved, the streets around here are so sad. Where it used to lots of pretty little gardens, now it;s just oilstained paving after oil stained paving with cars jutting out all over the pavement. Terrible for the environment (water table) as well. And it is better psychologically to live somewhere with green rather than just concrete.

It's so sad. All it would have taken would have been for the council to give one free permit to each household and then it never would have happened (or at least not nearly so much).

What a shame . Anyway that's my personal bugbear.

OP of course YABU

i still have my pretty garden sardine

Peachy I read that yesterday, I did feel for you

Maybe it's better psychologically to live somewhere green. But in the real world with shopping and babies to lug around, some off street parking would do 100x more for my stress levels that a bit of poxy grass and a pot.

But even if I had the £4000 for the council to lower the kerb plus the money to conrete over I'd only have room for a smart car on our front anyway.

sea I need to come and sit in it with blinkers on

although there is a hopeful sign - a couple of people have had them redone recently and have allowed very small borders back in...

I live in London and have lived near countless shopping areas and stations and I have been pleased everytime they introduced permits .
If you have ever had to walk 2 small children from the car down a busy main road to your house because someone who was parking for the station was taking all the spaces you would be too.

£90- £100 a year is nothing really for the joy of being able to park near your house!

sardine one free permit would have been the most sensible, practical, benevolent, community minded thing to do but we all know councils don't operate like that. No such gesture of goodwill can be expected from them.
Our Hooray neighbours have 4 yes folks 4 cars. One for eveyone in the special family.

I lived right next to a very busy commuter station for 10 years. We got residents parking in the last 5 years and it did make a difference.

Can I ask the OP to imagine this?
I lived in flats and had a baby/toddler in child care for 3 days a week.

I usually had to park at least 5mins walk away from my flat. This doesn't sound much but when bringing crying toddler, bags and other stuff from flat to car in the snow and rain before going to work day in day out I did not have a charitable frame of mind towards the commuters.

Also when I did any heavy shopping I was forced to bring the stuff into the flat in relays, again lugging toddler and bags etc from car to flat and back again. I just wanted to be able to park my car near enough to the flats to make this all a little easier.

My flat was cheap because of the noise of the station, lots of people didn't want to put up with that but they still wanted to park their cars there.

I chose to live near a staion for the convenience, but if I had lived near but not near enough to hear the nois I'd have paid a premium, so I made the choice to put up with the noise for the convenience. If you make the choice to live so far way from a station then you have to live with the inconvenience and cost of commuting.

BTW we paid for the parking permits and also paid for visitors permits that we gave to people who came to visit. It wasn't free parking for us but it did make life a bit easier.

it's all so interesting, this. our local council is desperate to introduce meters round here (ker-ching!) and have done in most areas. we're fighting it for as long as we can, meters are infinitely more miserable imo (for guests to your home, uuuurgh) than having to walk a couple of streets when you park. just fling the kids and the freezer bag into the house and grab the rest of your shopping later when the commuters go.

what does irritate me is that across the main road here there is a residents' parking area that is EMPTY all day. that is a pita, and just forces our streets to become more congested. but the council can't change the agreement with that local community because they would require them to say okay, which they are never in a million years going to do while they all get a space outside their homes.

it's all just selfishness, imo. have car, will be a twat, nine times out of ten.

attila why did you get on your high horse about the tyre comment, i think its a bloody good idea, would serve some ignorant buggers right then they might think again. most of my neighbours are as ignorant as hell, you could pop to tesco for half hour and come back to find our space gone, because our neighbours think its funny to let their visitors park their all day, we just block the gits in now, because it really isnt funny. and parking the car out of eye range isnt an option the thing will get nicked around here if your not watching it. just remember all you people who get annoyed with people like the OP dont keep an eye on their car, if someone vandalises it cos they parked there then oh well. i bet if something like that happened the first place the motorist would knock is the house they are outside to see if they saw anything. have some decency about yourselves and respect for others

sorry havent read the whole thread.

I am someone who would complain about a stranger parking outside my house.

I do live near a school and do understand the school run and dont find it too bad (only a pain when i forget the time and try and go out at school pick up times).

But what i do find very annoying is when the 6th formers get their cars and start parking outside my house. I have no idea whos car it is and it has in the past caused a lot of chaos, especially when deliveries are made.
It might not be quite so bad if they parked correctly - ie not double parked, making it very dangerous as well as impossible to get the 'rubbish lorry' down our street.

The police have been called at times because a car has had to be moved. We also had a rather snotty letter from the head of the school saying that pupils had a right to park on the streets.

I think if someone approached me and asked if it was ok i would not have a problem and would be inclined to 'watch' their car. Could you not ask one of the residence if you can use their space.

tiredmum. it's just plain against the law, not a high horse.

there was another post on here about people parking over the road to go to the pub and then drink drive, but i suppose thats ok. and i also see that myself around here.

"have some decency about yourselves and respect for others"

LOLOL!! Take your own advice and don't advocate inflicting criminal damage on other people's property then