All posts in the topic Car Parking in Brislington & St. Anne's (Short link)
Summary
- There are 6 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Pete Yeates at Oct 20 11:42 UTC
Parking in the Brislington & St. Anne’s has become more difficult in recent
years and many people are convinced that the problems have been compounded by
the conversion of houses into flats and bedsits. It is likely that when this
occurs, the occupants have more than one vehicle and not necessarily on-site
parking.
You only need to look at the side roads off Sandy Park Road and Bloomfield
Road, where the parking situation has got to the point where some residents
have to park their vehicles several streets away when they get home from work
or the shops. A car full of shopping and perhaps small children is one thing to
contend with, but how do you un-load everything safely?
Cars parked on pavements is also becoming the fashion. OK, there may be the
risk of using your wing mirror, or even worse, but there are other
considerations like pedestrians, especially people with push chairs etc.
Newbridge Road is perhaps the best known example as you head towards Feeder
Road. But this is not the only place where it occurs.
Until recently, Wick Road has been fairly clear between Wick House and the
Wicklea Centre, but since the re-development of at least two sites into flats,
the pavement parking has started there too. The re-development of another site
further back along Wick Road could be going ahead in the near future, so
therefore could add to the problems?
Is there a solution, other than getting everyone on two wheels?
Hi there
One practical step that we can take is to photograph parking hotspots with date
and time attached and send to the City's Traffic and Transport Department. Send
it to Andrew Spicer, who's the best contact for Brislington matters. We keep
commenting on planning applications, citing parking density as an issue. But
where there are clear infractions of the Highway Code, the only thing that we
can do is collect evidence and bring it to the City's attention. We could also
bring these issues to the attention of the police, through the PACT (Police and
Communities Together) process, but parking is, perhaps, the least of their
worries in Brislington.
hope that helps
Angela Piccini
As Secretary of the Brislington Conservation and History Society, I have been
objecting for years to applications for additional purpose-built flats and
conversions without adequate off-street parking! In fact, I have become quite
a bore on the subject. Planning officers have been known to state in their
reports that " there is plenty of street parking". They obviously do not live
here, and if they come to look, it is during the day, when many of the
commuters are away. I have always made the point that provision of a bus
service (as opposed to just the existence of a bus route) will actually require
more parking, as the commuters will then leave their cars at home all day as
well as in the evenings.
The problem is that the City Council has a policy aimed to discourage use of
private cars, and encourage bus use. This means that they limit the number of
parking spaces which can be included in new developments, and seem to be under
the impression that some of the small, one-bedroom flats which are currently
being created will be occupied by people who will not own cars. This is
blatant nonsense, and in any case, does not take into account the number of
large commercial vans now being parked in residential streets. This used to be
prohibited, as residential streets were just that - not free overnight parking
for businesses.
I think the way forward is a) to get the council to change its policy to ensure
that any new/converted dwellings have a minimum of one parking space per
bedroom, and b) to place a moritorium on any further conversions to flats of
terraced family housing within (say) a quarter of a mile of a school. This
will have several benefits - availability of more affordable housing for
families; housing for people with children within walking distance of schools;
reduction of school run congestion in streets around local schools.
It would be nice if the police were to actually enforce parking regulations,
especially in respect of pavement parking, and parking close to corners which
reduces or completely blocks visibility. Being aware of the amount of
on-street parking which already exists, however, it is probably not realistic
to press for this, other than where a clear danger is being caused, as it would
result in "parking rage" type fights as people try to get their vehicles into
the permitted areas.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
Lynda Harris
Lynda Harris: The problem is that the City Council has a policy aimed to
discourage use of
private cars, and encourage bus use. This means that they limit the number of
parking spaces which can be included in new developments, and seem to be under
the impression that some of the small, one-bedroom flats which are currently
being created will be occupied by people who will not own cars.
You hit the nail on the head. Council planners in Gloucester make exactly the
same argument, but it's not just single car use. Many of my neigbours have two
cars, and even three to a household is not unknown. Our liberal councillor
claims that this has led to lost tempers, but I'm pretty easy going because, at
the end of the day, no-one owns a particular space, even right outside their
home (and obviously the the multi-car users don't want residential parking
which would limit them to one car).
What *does* bother me are the idiots who park outside schools at dropping off
and picking up time. Since the police (or, rather, PCSOs) take a very lenient
attitude, and just shoo them away every week or so, my solution, which could
also apply to ordinary illegal parking, is to put a penalty point on the owner
of the vehicle every time it is seen parked illegally. Every third time it was
spotted the owner could additionally be requested to 'produce' their documents
at the local police station, and the tenth time, the car could be impounded.
Better yet, since seizing a car costs money, and many people seem to get way
with non-payment these days even when billed for costs, on that tenth occasion,
they could be required to retake their driving test. I think that prospect
might make them a bit more cautious.
Lving on Newbridge Road, the parking has become a nightmare, in 1998, myself
and my neighbour had our cars written off by a drunk driver., Only last week
one of my neighbours had his car damaged by passing traffic, which is going to
cost him many hundreds of pounds to get repaired. When we approached the
council to get some sort of traffic calming measures in place toslow the
traffic down, especially as it comes from Wick Road towards the Feeder Road, we
were told and I quote, "We will only do somethng about this when there is a
fatality." This is a shocking statement, but because of the problems with the
damage to our cars we feel we have no option but to park half on/off the
pavement. We are a rat run, with huge traffic volumes at rush hour, if we were
to park properly, ie not on the pavement, there would be many more accidents,
perhaps getting the fatality that the council want. We suggested putting in
something similar to what is in place on First Avenue, that way we could park
our cars normally without having to be on the pavement. This was ignored.
It was also suggested at one point that the council turn the green at the
bottom of Newbridge Road, be turned into a carpark. But this would attract
unwanted elements similar to the joyriders and boy racers who use the carpark
by the park and bowlingclub as some sort of race track.
We have now had the council surveying the green between Newbridge Road and St
Annes Road, which incidentally the council has listed as a grass verge, with a
view to developing it. The parking issue then, will only get worse, as with
new developments come greater parking issues.
Lynda, for a long time after my car was written off outside my house I parked
in one of the side streets away from my house, only to have my tyres regularly
slashed and my car vandalised, so I made the decision to move my car back
outside my house, half on/off the pavement. We are not trying to be selfish,
we try to give as much room as possible for those with pushchairs etc. But we
also have to think about our property.
15 years ago we canvassed the people in the street, to see if they would be
willing to lose some of their back gardens so that we could have a wider lane
between us and Highworth Road, so that we could park in the rear of our
gardens, but one person near the entrance to the rear lane objected, and that
was that.
We would love a solution, and it lies with the council but their efforts at the
moment seem to be in removing public access for profit rather than trying to
make thngs better for residents that are already here.
While the footpath/walkway on the railway bridge was being repaired near St.
Annes school, the temporary road narrowing and no parking signs made a massive
difference. No 4x4 and MPV parking on the bridge and a safer situation overall.
My worry is that the temporary large red no parking signs could disappear and
the parking on the bridge returns?
I'm not a great fan of yellow lines, so why not extend the zig-zag lines across
the bridge?