Parking in Bristol

[User2344]

Hi all, looking to move to Bristol and searching for a house in and around Bishopston. Not a lot of houses with garages or driveways, lots of street parking and looking on street view, all streets seem packed. How easy in your experience is parking in Bristol? Is it an absolute nightmare or manageable? Guess I am trying to understand if we absolutely have to have a house with a drive and should therefore abandon looking at houses without somewhere to park, besides the street parking. Thank you!

Parking & traffic in general is pretty horrendous in Bristol tbh!

If you live in Bristol and have a car, you get very good at parallel parking in tiny spaces! Ds always finds somewhere fairly quickly, but not necessarily outside his house. Usually on the same road, at least!

I have a house in Bishopston (currently rented out) and it has a driveway...one of a few houses in the street that does. I have been back twice since the pandemic and was amazed at the amount of cars parked on the road. Maybe it is people WFH, but I reckon there were at least 50% more cars parked on the road than when I lived there 10 years ago. When I lived there I often parked on the road right outside anyway if I was popping in and out all day as the driveway was a bit narrow and the space outside my house was usually always free.When I visited in early 2021 and early 2022, I couldn't get close. Both sides of the road were full. It's also made driving down the side roads awful...constantly a stand off with cars coming the other way. I know further into town (Cotham Hill way) introduced parking permits a few years back, which maybe sent cars up the Gloucester Road to park. I'd say yes, get a driveway if it is in your budget.

if you can parallel park you'll be fine. if you can't you need a drive (or to learn!)

I wouldn’t buy in Bristol without a drive. Still scarred from the night when what should have been a 6 min trip home took 1.5 hours as City were playing at home and there was no one to park near my Stepmother’s house. Has to drive some miles away where I knew there would be parking and get a taxi.

I have lived in/around Bishopston for 6 years and agree with this. I think as well as WFH it is the fact that more and more houses are students/HMOs with multiple cars per house. Also on Rovers match days it's absolutely ridiculous.

Apart from difficulty parking you need to consider the likelihood of your car getting pranged when parked on the road. Has happened to us a couple of times.

Have you looked at Henleaze? There is a decent number of 1930s houses there which tend to have bigger plots and better parking than the Victorian terraces in Bishopston.

You could always convert the front garden into a paved drive. then you get the dropped curb in front of your house too. We always said we’d NEVER do this but frankly, with almost all our neighbours now being multiple car households it’s starting to grate that we can’t even park our single car.

also consider how much you actually need to drive living in bishopston, everything is walking / cycling distance. I can usually time car trips around times I know I’ll get a spot on returning.

"Everything is walking/cycling distance" - there are certainly brilliant shopping and leisure facilities nearby, but don't think you can rely on public transport if you need to work in town or eldewhere in Bristol. The buses are incredibly slow and unreliable - people moving here are in for a shock especially if coming from London.

I used to get a bus from Gloucester Road to Temple Meads and back for work. It would regularly take more than an hour door to door whereas driving or getting a taxi would take 15 minutes. Now that I have kids, I just do not have that time to spare in the morning or early evening and so I do drive to work.

Not to put you off OP - it's lovely here apart from that!

Get used to having scrapes on your car and having to parallel park!

Is the street residents parking, or a free for all? That will make a huge difference!

I agree that if you can parallel park, it is usually alright, but also agree about the risk of cars getting scratched/damaged, too. Sometimes you will have to park a few streets away, but you usually get to know where there's likely to be an available space!

That said, I last lived in Bristol pre-pandemic, and it sounds like things have gotten worse.

I visited someone in part of Bristol - the parking was ridiculous, lots of cars had little marks from bashes and there were just cars everywhere. I wouldn’t like to live there, unless I had my own driveway.

Look out for the new emissions zone and its associated fines. £9 if you drive through in a diesel car without registering it, but maybe it's different for residents. www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/streets-travel/bristols-caz/charges-and-vehicle-checker

As others have said, traffic and parking in Bristol is generally horrendous. Depending on the regular journeys you'll need to make it might be worth looking in east Bristol - St George, Speedwell, Hanham, Fishponds - more 30s house with big enough plots to have drives.

You can cycle to temple meads easily. I never get the bus, I’d rather walk or cycle (or voi)

Yeah, I'm pretty uncoordinated at the best of times and have never felt safe cycling on the roads in Bristol (or anywhere). Having small children to pick up and drop off makes it more unviable still. I know some people use trailers and stuff but I don't feel safe cycling by myself let alone with kids in tow. I do a lot of walking though.

The RPZ charge is not different for residents.

Thanks everyone. This is great insight and it seems like we do need to find a house with a driveway. I think we'll just have to go to bristol and experience it all for ourselves just get a feel for it.

I will be commuting to Harbourside and would ideally like to keep the commute to 30 mins one way ( as I am sick of my current 2 hour commute per day) that would have to be either by bus or on foot.

Lots of bus routes in Bristol converge at the harbourside so your home location shouldn't be too constrained by needing to get to that part of the city. From east Bristol there are frequent buses that come down the A420 and terminate at the harbour (from memory the 43/43/45). Similarly I think with buses that come from the north or north west, though I'm less familiar with those. Generally speaking, unless you have a huge budget you do need to go a bit further out to get a house with a drive as most of the housing stock closer to the centre is terraces.

Ah that's good to know! Our budget I around 800k ,could probably stretch to 850k for a 4+ bedrooms, a garden and a driveway

I would go and visit and see what you think of the different areas. With that budget, you’ll be able to get a 4 bed with garden and drive within 3 miles of the centre. On Rightmove I can see a few nice ones in BS6/7/9.

South Bristol is walking distance to harbour. Your budget is really good. You could get a large house with drive maybe even garage in Ashton. I’ve lived up north Bristol and as others have said bloody traffic is awful. Have you thought about the outskirts like long Ashton or Dundry.

The Reseidents Parking Zone and the Clean Air Zone have had a ripple effect on where people park.
I've worked in a premises just inside the RPZ and noticed an increase in people walking into town. A friend who lives about half a mile outside the Zone says parking in her street has increased too.
I hope you don't have a pre 2015 diesel car. It will cost you £9 each time you go into the CAZ

My friend was an estate agent for Bishopston. Awful to park anywhere there

In your situation, I personally really wouldn't even consider driving. On some days you'll be literally crawling all the way into the city.
You'll pay a huge 'tax' to get a driveway around there and it'll drastically reduce the choice of properties available.

You could consider it part of a 'healthy' walk each day, and feel better for it. Failing that it's a 15 minute bike ride. Buses are awful IMO.

I wouldn’t drive to the harbourside either, no way. I would walk, cycle or voi.