Living Streets position on pavement parking

Context

Pavement parking is a major problem outside London. Not only does pavement parking restrict accessibility and create car dominated streets, but it is also a drain on scare maintenance budgets with regular damage to pavements (Ealing Council estimates that it spends £39,000 annually repairing pavements damaged by parked vehicles).  We need a new legal framework to prevent pedestrians from being marginalised by inconsiderate parking.

Why it matters

1.    Increased car ownership increases demand and pressure on parking;
2.    We have an ageing population with increasing levels of mobility and visual impairments;
3.    People with disabilities, and parents with children in pushchairs are those most affected by vehicles blocking the pavement;
4.    The damage from pavement parking costs every local authority thousands of pounds every year in maintenance and repair;
5.    Any signs and physical prevention measures are both expensive and serve only to clutter the street environment;
6.    Enforcement of the laws can be self-financing, with no cost to the public purse;
7.    We should be taking pride in our streets rather than cluttering and damaging the pavements through inconsiderate parking.

Local authorities have powers under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to restrict or prohibit pavement parking on individual streets by the making of a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) but this is an expensive, laborious process to go down on a street by street basis and creates additional clutter through street signs. Exeter, Hereford, and Worcester councils are the only local authorities of which Living Streets is aware to have a similar framework to that in London, achieved through separate Acts of Parliament.

Action

We would like to see a national framework that a) assumes a general prohibition of pavement parking with powers for Local Authorities to designate exemption areas if necessary and desirable; and b) encourages and supports the decriminalisation of enforcement.  In Greater London, this framework broadly exists, and we believe rolling this out nationally is the most effective way of dealing with this problem.  Specifically, we recommend that: 
1.    UK Government to make pavement parking illegal throughout the UK;
2.    All local authorities to decriminalise and take on the civil enforcement of parking offences;
3.    While police are still responsible for enforcement, to take the issue more seriously and enforce all instances of pavement parking.
4.    UK Government to lead a wider national “pavement education” campaign on all aspects of using our pavements – including anti-social parking and cycling;