Letter to Editor: Campaigning against pavement parking in Harlow
Politics / Wed 1st Jan 2025 at 01:19pm
Dear Editor,
FRIDAY November 22nd marked four years since the previous government’s consultation on pavement parking in England closed. Cars parked on, and sometimes hogging the whole pavement, will be a familiar sight to many.
Pavement parking is dangerous especially for families with young children, people with sight loss and disabled people. A recent poll found that 87 per cent of parents have had to walk in the road because of a vehicle blocking the pavement. It damages pavement surfaces too.
Living Streets has been campaigning on this issue for over 50 years and it’s high time we saw an end to the problem. Pavement parking has been banned (with exemptions) in London since the 1970s. Scotland adopted a similar approach to London which came into force earlier this year. The Welsh Government has indicated they will take action on pavement parking – but England is way behind.
We hope your readers will join Living Streets and supporters like me, in urging the new Government to deal with the troubling legacy of pavement parking once and for all. Everyone will be the better for it.
Yours faithfully,
Jake Shepherd
RLB
2025-01-01 14:50:06
Love for this to be done. In the picture in potter street there is parking behind the building. But people are to lazy to park there and WALK (heaven forbid) to their front door. Rather than park right outside their front door.
AB
2025-01-01 17:28:56
Pavement parking is very anti-social, ideally it would be part of the council's, as well as police's joint aim to tackle asb.
Resident
2025-01-01 17:50:18
Pavement parking is a problem however frequently understandable because if a car is parked "round the back", anywhere not in sight, then the higher the risk of it being broken into, parts removed or stolen. Solutions employed elsewhere include making the road one way, with only one side of the road available for cars (effectively dedicating one side of the road to walkers and cyclists and or only allowing parking on one side if the road.
Resident
2025-01-01 18:30:41
There are areas, Longfield being one, where it's impossible to walk on the pavement. It's so dangerous. Yes it's difficult to find spaces to park, but taking up the footpath is the height of ignorance and entitlement. It's time fines and points were issued. Repeat offenders should get a ban
RLB
2025-01-01 18:30:49
Resident. Pavements are for walking. Not parking. You have insurance for the things you stated. Plus they can still happen even if your car is right outside your house. Lazy people is the problem.
Resident
2025-01-01 20:30:47
Other resident, also, people are at increased risk of getting seriously injured or killed so that people's cars don't get damaged ? Shows where some people's values are
Al Gafar
2025-01-01 22:02:33
I have campaigned through Harlow council and Essex police ,there are provisions in place to rectify this problem at local level ,but due to indifference by both parties no action is being taken , contacted Harlow council and they say they can't do anything ,this is rubbish there are bylaws in place to stop this action ,however the problem is having the personnel to carry out these duties . And so.we still cast our disabled ,people who are blind ,mum's and babies with push chairs as if they don't exist ,hooray for the ignorant uncaring idiotic car and van drivers on our planet .
Bonzo
2025-01-01 23:05:15
There are so many commercial vehicles parked up in residential areas, these should be banned or chargeable permits! The company that owns the vehicle can pay it! Then perhaps.we could afford to get the roads and pavements fixes, along with the cycle tracks...
Mickaic
2025-01-02 00:22:36
Stop house of multiple occupation full stop the town was built for one car per home so this does not help , plus all the new homes are going to increase traffic and congestion well done the local council, the country council, and all the past political parties, the fix by the power s that be is stop the average person to not be able to have a car by greenhouse tax ect the dramatic increase in insurance ect the low traffic zones ect so the only people who will be able to have personal transport will be the rich and politician party members
Jasper
2025-01-02 01:59:47
With HMO's there would be many more homeless people in Harlow. We can't be considered for council housing so this is our only option. Ban commercial vehicles parking in residential streets overnight might solve some of the problems.
nickl
2025-01-02 05:28:17
A possible solution for some areas would be to follow the example of Bateman Road, South Chingford. The road is too narrow to allow parking on both sides, and there is next to no "off street" parking. The local authority have painted a white line on the path, and allow cars to park up to the white line. Park over it and you may get a ticket. This works well and ensures that there is space along the pavement to allow for wheel chairs, double buggies etc. It is a low cost solution.
John
2025-01-02 08:50:48
My daughter lives in stile croft on the main road and to be honest with you there is nowhere to park than on the curb because there ain't any parking spaces anywhere else but when it's the school run you've got parents parking there as well and to be honest with you it is a nightmare and very dangerous but they don't seem to want to solve the problems before there is a big accident.
JR
2025-01-02 09:35:55
I'm a mobility scooter pavement rider, I take my dog out along side of me but he can get on scooter by my feet. I use to drive so I use my driving skills on my scooter which is, I pull over for people, pushchair mums & their kids & so does my little dog. It infuriating when I come across cars & vans with 2 wheels up on pavements & they have more of their vehicles on the pavement than the road. Sometimes I have to reverse back go down a dropped kerb & drive up road again to get round these vichcles. I liked also to point out that these selfish uncaring drivers also hog dropped kerbs which again is another problem for us who have to go further to get to where we want to go. These people are lazy & if they can get that extra inch to their front doors or to where they can see the vehicle they will that also includes parking up on the green verges of the estate . There are too many cars to each household now & not enough parking anywhere in Harlow & it's breaking up the paths, the kerb's & destroying green verges. People don't care where or how they're cars are parked & come to that neither the angles they park.
Peter Lamb
2025-01-02 11:15:05
Pavement Parking is illegal and covered by the highway code, if the police and local authorities used the existing powers of enforcement then people might start to become a bit more considerate
Anthony Harmes
2025-01-02 13:04:26
There has just been finished .A new parking area behind where this picture is taken. With at least 30 new spaces available. It's now down to harlow council to tell these residents to use the new area or get fined for parking in front of there house .
Martin
2025-01-02 13:47:13
The council should sort out the garages and make the rent cheaper to get cars off the roads and stop parking on pavement.
Paul
2025-01-02 13:50:01
Totally agree with Bonzo. It is Commercial vehicles in Residential areas causing the real parking issues.
Lee Hervey
2025-01-02 14:46:27
Yes it's frustrating and have been in a wheelchair in the past I understand the frustration of having to go longer than you could do specially on dropped curbs but where are the vehicles gonna go instead? Short sited solutions don't solve the problem.
Mick
2025-01-02 15:12:51
Mickaic the town was not built for one car per household When it was first built people largely didn't have a car. The newer parts of the town are not designed to cope with the increase in cars. How ever you see it it is wrong to park on a pavement even partially. Come on English lawmakers. I also believe that commercial vehicles should not be parked on housing estates
Resident
2025-01-02 15:19:30
Cars near me park on the pavement as there is not enough parking on the road. It's not about being closer to our houses, or too lazy to walk further. There just isn't enough space. Ban commercial vehicles from residential streets (like back in the day). Charge a flat rate for a parking permit registered to a specific address (one car outside of your home, additional cars opposite green spaces/ non front doors). Traffic wardens need to patrol residential areas, not just shopping / commercial areas. Also, I push a wheelchair. Two wheels is fine on the curb and doesn't bother me. Four wheels is crossing the line.
Resident
2025-01-02 15:58:27
Around Little Cattins is terrible for parking and people park on the pavements, on the grass on corners. It all stems from two things. Commercial vans (which there are quite a few) and people converting their parking spaces into gardens. Thus losing their parking space. Most residents had a single bay. Half of which are gone. There is plenty of space the council could use around there to free up spaces.
,Resident
2025-01-02 16:14:53
Pavement parking is simply ignorant, direspectful and selfish, as is grass verge parking, leaving the verges so churned up and unsightly. Nobody seems to care for their own environments.
David Thompson
2025-01-02 18:27:02
How unfortunate, if you lived in Hertford, you can park caravans completely on the pavement, east Herts council and Herts county council are perfectly happy for this, as are the police.
Simon
2025-01-02 18:27:25
I agree with others on here. People who complain are probably not car owners. If there is nowhere to park then there is no option. Parking out of sight is also a risk. Solutions are needed. The problem is not the car owners but the space.
Kim
2025-01-02 18:41:40
I drive and walk. I am sick of vehicles on the pavement. I've had so many near misses having to step into the road. If I can't park, I drive to where I can and walk home. It's called being considerate and showing respect and not being selfish. Its the right thing to do.
David
2025-01-02 18:50:33
Paringdon road on a Friday lunch time, cars parked on double yellow lines and over the whole pavement, pedestrians have to walk in the road. Council know this but chose to do nothing.
Resident
2025-01-02 19:16:00
Campaign for parking spaces, and then against parking on pavements.
Steve
2025-01-02 21:47:24
Good luck! Once upon a time a household were very fortunate if they had one car. Now days most households have 2/3 cars so where do you think they are going to park?
Nick Gunning
2025-01-03 00:07:47
One problem is that when much of Harlow was built, many families didn't own a car, and certainly, there weren't houses with multiple adults, all with their own cars. Those who live in flats don't have the possibility of hardstanding and dropped kerbs. There are clusters of garages on most estates but, apart from insufficient spaces, even a mini is 10" or more wider than when these spaces were designed. Getting the car in and then getting out of the car equally impossible! We'll have to bite the bullet and create area multistory parks, maybe paid by a supplement to council tax. Then street parking would have to be short-stay- no more than a couple of hours, which would allow for casual visitors, commercial repair vans etc. At the moment some street and pavement parking is commercial vehicles. There need to be handy commercial parks maintained by local companies. Not an ideal solution but the alternative is to restrict car ownership to those who have access to parking land, which would be divisive. Harlow has a large number of people dependent on mobility scooters and walking aids; but there are whole streets that are no-go areas, where the disabled need circuitous routes to their own homes! An award-winning council would be the one that squares these circles!
Ray Aldridge - Morris
2025-01-03 10:25:56
Of course it is both frustrating and illegal but if these cars parked fully in the road they would be virtually impassable not only to emergency vehicles.
Emmm
2025-01-03 13:34:17
I recently tried to get the 'authorities' to undertake some action about pavement parking outside my home. Harlow Council said it was the responsibility of the police to deal with this problem, so I called Essex Police who were unequivocal that this was a council matter. Round and round we go!
annoyed
2025-01-03 13:51:50
some people have to have their company vehicles as they could get called out and would need them . the problem especially round Nicholls field is that people who don't live there or close by park up to 4 cars there and that's 4 spaces people that live there could be using. also spencers croft many cars that belong to people that don't live there.
Whatever
2025-01-04 09:04:02
Oh dear, because of the amount of pupils now attending St Nick's and Churchgate school, parking is a massive problem. So much ignorance from the parents who park anywhere and are ready with mouthfuls of foul and spiteful language if asked to move their precious vehicles. Indeed, several parking spaces that are allocated for residents are used by parents who ignore road markings. The adage around here now is, when the pavements are full up, please use the road. please use the road.
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