Off street parking provision

[haymansafc]

It would be good to mandate better roads. I have a friend on a new housing estates and the roads are just horrible. Twisting every ten metres, sharp speed bumps everywhere even though you couldn't go over 15mph if you tried, and cars scattered everywhere including around corners because none of the houses have driveways.

Best of all they have done that thing where the whole estate is connected onto the road network with a simple T junction onto a 40mph arterial road. Same with anotyer estate near me. I just don't get how they are allowed to get away with it, when older estates always have multiple decent junctions to arterial roads.

They're deliberately designed with children in mind. Rather than providing them with open spaces, such as fields, to go. Again, house builders will stack as many houses as possible onto the smallest parcels of land. Therefore councils accept that the roads are now children's play areas, rather than those who pay, and pay a lot, to use them. A worrying trend that shows no signs of stopping.

This is also why you never see a straight road on a new housing estate any more. There will always be tight or random bends with poor sight lines to deliberately slow traffic down. As there's more houses on new land that becomes available, they'll make the roads as narrow as they possibly can to again, fit as many houses they can onto it. With no forward thinking when it comes to parking, these already narrow roads and turned into obstacle courses when residents have little other choice but to bump up the pavements in order to just park outside or near their home.

It's not a problem with there being 'too many cars' as what is deemed to be the correct way of thinking these days. It's a lack of acceptance of how people travel and a lack of forward planning/future proofing.

When they are away a car parked outside their house gives the impression there's someone in and lessens the chance of a burglary.

Something similar happened a few years ago next door but one to us. The man who lived there at the time went to visit relatives in Australia for three weeks. He usually parked his car in the garage (it just about fit...he'd inch it in!) but when he went away, he left it on display on the driveway.

It also ruins the appearance of the neighbourhood when front gardens end up as car parks. All the vegetation disappears apart from dandelions growing between the joints of the block paving

It's a bugbear of mine too... As my mother says "Why buy a house with gardens if you don't want them?". Our new neighbours block-paved what was an attractive decorative stone/shale area which had various mature shrubs in the middle and all around the border... Typically, it's now just used as another car park, whilst their driveway (same length as ours - three cars could get on it easily) never has more than one car on it at any given time. We're considering adding more/taller shrubs along the border fence to cover up their extended car park.

[A9NWIL]

The front garden of our 60s built house was paved over by the previous owners, before that you could get 2 in a a row on the drive and a 3rd in the garage. We can get 8 on it now with a bit of shuffling.

Of course, paving over front gardens brings environmental issues of accelerated rainfall run-off - some local authorities now require porous surfacing to be used.

It also ruins the appearance of the neighbourhood when front gardens end up as car parks. All the vegetation disappears apart from dandelions growing between the joints of the block paving

That can be counteracted if there is enough space that a hedge or trees could be planted at the very edge on one side, with access on the other for parking. Then behind the trees/hedge you can hide another space likely at an angle.

[Fenlander]

It would be good to mandate better roads. I have a friend on a new housing estates and the roads are just horrible. Twisting every ten metres, sharp speed bumps everywhere even though you couldn't go over 15mph if you tried, and cars scattered everywhere including around corners because none of the houses have driveways.

Best of all they have done that thing where the whole estate is connected onto the road network with a simple T junction onto a 40mph arterial road. Same with anotyer estate near me. I just don't get how they are allowed to get away with it, when older estates always have multiple decent junctions to arterial roads.

Our old estate was like that, newbuild development on a brownfield site but only accessible by road by 1 entrance/exit. The air ambulance landed on that junction once not only blocking the main road (which was already blocked by the accident needing it along 1 arm) but also cutting off the entire estate, at school run time too. There are several points where the roads butt up to existing estates and the roadway does get agonisingly close at times, you could walk between 2 estates but not drive or legally cycle, you can walk & cycle through to another but the roadway is bollarded off normally, they had to open it when the normal entrance was blocked for drainage investigations.

Here's a corner plot that has added the gravelled parking and shrubs around it against both the planning permission and covenants on the deeds. Their parking space is used by the silver van but by taking advantage of the dropped kerb they can get 3/4 vehicles parked off the road. Roll forwards and the house to the left has done the same. No one is interested in enforcing the rules as they've solved the designed-in parking problem, that is a 5-bed property after all so it was always going to have more than 1 car.

It also ruins the appearance of the neighbourhood when front gardens end up as car parks. All the vegetation disappears apart from dandelions growing between the joints of the block paving

It's a bugbear of mine too... As my mother says "Why buy a house with gardens if you don't want them?". Our new neighbours block-paved what was an attractive decorative stone/shale area which had various mature shrubs in the middle and all around the border... Typically, it's now just used as another car park, whilst their driveway (same length as ours - three cars could get on it easily) never has more than one car on it at any given time. We're considering adding more/taller shrubs along the border fence to cover up their extended car park.

Whilst our front is block paved (and drained!) being an older property it also has a decent sized back garden too, the kids have 40m of garden to play in which we're changing as they grow. The orchard down the bottom end yields apples, pears & plums, we've planted some blackberry, raspberry and blueberry (I think) bushes along the side and last year had strawberry, cucumber, lettuce, a variety of tomatoes as well as potatos, a huuuuge pumpkin plant and assorted other eatables of varying success. Our immediate neighbours either side both have very large trees, the one south of us casts a large shadow over our garden in the summer, which is handy for the shade, the one the other side is a very large fir tree that regularly attracts everything from pigeons through squirrels to owls.
The front garden turned into parking is a common feature along the whole of our road, as a result no one (apart from a few houses much further into town) parks on the road even though there's no parking restrictions.

[trickstat]

The front garden of our 60s built house was paved over by the previous owners, before that you could get 2 in a a row on the drive and a 3rd in the garage. We can get 8 on it now with a bit of shuffling.

Of course, paving over front gardens brings environmental issues of accelerated rainfall run-off - some local authorities now require porous surfacing to be used.

It also ruins the appearance of the neighbourhood when front gardens end up as car parks. All the vegetation disappears apart from dandelions growing between the joints of the block paving

I once read that in a street where parking is difficult, the first house that paved over its front garden for parking is considered to be worth a little more than the others. However, when everybody has followed suit, the visual deterioration in the street generally means that all houses are worth slightly less than if all the front gardens were intact.

[trickstat]

Further to earlier posts about people over-reacting to parking outside their house-

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... -ambulance

[michael769]

The excuse I always hear is "trees need maintaining", presumably in a way that acres of block paving does not.

Yes but unmaintained block paving does not fall on people's heads and get you sued.

[Bryn666]

It might not fall on your head but when vehicles bump over it it settles and then causes trips and falls. And people get sued.

DB32 was the worst policy ever to grace highways design really. It lumbered us with car dependent suburbs that are impossible to drive a car around. The worst of both worlds.

[A9NWIL]

The excuse I always hear is "trees need maintaining", presumably in a way that acres of block paving does not.

Yes but unmaintained block paving does not fall on people's heads and get you sued.

but if someone falls because of unmaintained paving then they can also sue, so your screwed either way for non maintenance.

[michael769]

but if someone falls because of unmaintained paving then they can also sue, so your screwed either way for non maintenance.

True but the payouts for a broken limb are somewhat less than those for a fatality.

I know that trips can also lead to fatalities but somewhat less so than when a tree comes down on someone. Overall the potential liability from a fallen tree is much higher.

[A9NWIL]

but if someone falls because of unmaintained paving then they can also sue, so your screwed either way for non maintenance.

True but the payouts for a broken limb are somewhat less than those for a fatality.

I know that trips can also lead to fatalities but somewhat less so than when a tree comes down on someone. Overall the potential liability from a fallen tree is much higher.

The moral is whatever it is maintain it!

[michael769]

The moral is whatever it is maintain it!

Something that local authorities have a great reluctance to do!

[A9NWIL]

The moral is whatever it is maintain it!

Something that local authorities have a great reluctance to do!

Very true, laws would need to be changed to get them to chivy up in maintenance.