Parent and child parking- plea for support

[wws]

Hello fellow Mums.

Does anyone else get frustrated struggling to get the car seat in and out when there are no parent and child spaces?

I find it very difficult and just after my son was born and I had a lot of stiches it was physically impossible. Therefore I had to park over two bays in a Roads Service car park for which I got ticketed. I appealed but was rejected and am appealing again.

Apparently parent and child spaces are a courtesy but unfortunately the Road service lacks the courtesy to make one of their 33, 380 spaces a parent and child bay. So us parents end up having to contort ourselves into impossible postions trying to squeeze our children in without hitting the cars next to us. As there is no legislation to require parent and child bays they just don't bother.

The issue is that the Roads Service is a public body, and parents with young children are a sizeable proportion of the public, therefore they should be required by legislation to provide spaces for us.

I would like to get some legislation in place to require them to do so. I have already contacted my MP to request a meeting and am going to be on to the Stephen Nolan radio show tomorrow to discuss it.

PLEASE call in to support me if you can ( as am very nervous ) or if anyone knows how to set up an online petition could they let me know?

Thanks for your support

I agree that spaces need to be there, but I think there are 2 major things that bug me. Firstly - I have seen car parks where the child spaces are closer to the front than the disabled spaces, which personally I think is wrong.

I also think they should put an age limit on spaces. I had a row with a woman in a supermarket as she took last space (i was with friend with 3 month old) - and the woman who stole the space had a kid of 9... really - there's no need to use child spaces when you have a 9 year old!

Anyhow... personal gripes

I think a petition sounds good... but have no idea how to help!

I agree on both counts, a nine year old can get out on their own.

My idea would be that new parents get a badge that lasts three years that they must display in order to use bays.

My gripe is that Tesco, Asda and other private companies whereas the Road Service, who are a public service, provide none, even though they have 33,380 spaces (shock)

Anyway thanks for teh support.