Council Motion: Pavement Parking

As we’ve mentioned in previous weeks, we are seeing roads getting busier and the associated problems this brings. One of these is parking and particularly parking on narrow residential streets. Although Government action has been promised on this, it has yet to happen. This motion is an example of something you could bring to your council to highlight the issue and call for action.

This Council notes that:

• Pavement parking can pose a hazard to pedestrians, especially people with sight loss, parents with pushchairs, wheelchair users and other disabled people.
• People with sight loss are especially at risk as they can be forced into the road and faced with oncoming traffic that they cannot see.
• Pavements are not designed to take the weight of vehicles and so surfaces can become damaged or subside, presenting a further hazard for pedestrians, particularly those with disabilities.

Action to tackle pavement parking in this Borough is currently problematic because:

• The current legislation on nuisance pavement parking is confusing.
• The legal remedies available to tackle nuisance pavement parking are unsatisfactory.

Council:

• Awaits with interest the Government’s promised response to the public submissions made to the Department of Transport’s ‘Pavement Parking: Options for Change’ consultation, but regrets that this response, promised by 31 March, is now over three months late.
• Anticipates that the outcome of the consultation will be for Government to grant new powers to local authorities to address nuisance pavement parking, rather than imposing an unnecessary blanket ban that will be onerous on residents and costly and difficult for local authorities to enforce.

Council resolves to:

• Ask the Chief Executive to write to the Secretary of State for Transport requesting that the Government’s response to the consultation now be published as promised.
• Ask the relevant Officer to conduct a survey amongst the elected members of this Council asking members to identify streets within their ward where nuisance pavement parking occurs.
• Ask the relevant Cabinet Member to bring to a future meeting of this Council a report with the findings of this survey and details of the enforcement action that this Council proposes to take, taking account of any new powers the Government promises to make available to local authorities in their published response to the consultation.