Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Graham Bright has said Cambridge should have a by-law banning pavement parking.
Mr Bright was speaking at Cambridge’s East Area Committee on the 29th of October 2015, commenting on the #badlyparkedbike Twitter hashtag initiated by Cambridge Police. The police initially used the hashtag to tweet examples of badly parked bikes; it was promptly hijacked by people tweeting photographs of cars parked obstructing pavements and cycle lanes. Police and Crime Commissioner Graham Bright said:
One of the problems is of course is there is not, unless there is a local by-law, anything to stop you parking on the pavement. That is something you may wish to pursue because if there’s a local by-law which prohibits it the police can actually issue tickets.
So what is done is if someone is causing an obstruction or are endangering other people than they can take action.
What annoys me is when someone does that and you’ve got people having to walk into the road, particularly elderly people and ladies with children in pushchairs; I mean that is horrendously dangerous and that’s where that can be an issue the police can come in on.
But there is this grey area about parking on verges and parking on pavements. Now I’ve always been brought up to believe you do not park on the pavement because that’s for people to walk on but people do park inconsiderately doing that.
And yes I’ve raised it several times but there is this legal thing on whether you can sort of prosecute someone for just parking on a pavement because there is not a local by-law against it. There should be. Maybe we ought to work together on that to see if we can put that right.
People who park in a dangerous way effects other people and endangers them; that is seriously bad news. You can think of so many people, blind people and anyone like that who has to walk out into the road it’s not on. They can issue a ticket if that’s the case and I’ll try and encourage that.
My Views
I would like to see enforcement of our existing law which already prohibits obstructing pavements.
I expect those parking on pavements think they are doing the right thing by keeping the road clear and reducing the amount their vehicle obstructs the flow of traffic. We need to encourage drivers to think about those with prams, wheelchairs, and others who might want to use the pavement as well as about other drivers.
Pavement parking practice appears to vary around the country. I think it could be very confusing if some areas had by-laws banning it and others didn’t so I would prefer a national law. I support local councillors deciding where to bring in parking controls such as bays and yellow lines, but I don’t think the default position for an unsigned, unlined, road and pavement ought change depending on which council area you are in.
I think it would help if a definition of obstruction was included in the law to make it a more clear cut offence. If it was more clear cut it would become possible to allow council parking enforcement officers to issue tickets.
In Cambridge a general ban on parking on pavements, if it also applied to verges, might help protect the grass on many of our streets.
I wouldn’t want a ban on ever pulling up the side of a road and parking though; that would be illiberal and unreasonable. Perhaps a rural grass verge, without a curb, ought be treated differently to one within an urban area.
The process of getting new double yellow lines, which ban parking on the road and adjacent pavement, is long-winded, and expensive. We need to elect good local councillors and give them the power to rapidly change parking rules when required. Sometimes councillors will have to take difficult decisions and say people can’t park outside their homes, in the interests of the wider public being able to travel along the road and pavement.
16 responses to “Police and Crime Commissioner Says Cambridge Should Have By-Law to Ban Pavement Parking”
Not just an obstruction: a breach of parking rules anyway. Double yellow lines apply to the whole of the highway, not just the carriageway. And loading restrictions here too!
Richard there are many Cambridge streets, and in particularly in Romsey where the streets are narrow and parking on both sides of the street is only possible if cars park on the pavements. Many streets have pavement parkng marked. The local fire service have to my knowledge gone down streets ensuring that residents are parking to leave sufficient room for their engines to pass and insisting people do so. Perhaps the PCC would leave his leafy village and come into the city and see for himself the narrow streets of Cambridge.
I presume any by-law would exempt marked bays on (and part on) pavements – which are what we’ve got off Mill Road and elsewhere in the city.
“Many streets have pavement parking marked.”
Yes, and it never should have been allowed. It regularly forces pedestrians into the road. This is public land used for storage of private property on a permanent basis.
It should be obvious when people move in how narrow the streets are an how unsuitable for parking. It hasn’t changed since they were built. If someone wants to have a car parked right outside their house, then living in Romsey probably isn’t a good idea. It’s hardly the cheapest of areas: it’s not economic necessity forcing people. After all, people without a car have to consider the restrictions on where they can live based on their transport needs.
The empty spot in front of the pink car in the above photo is a disabled parking space marked partly on the road and partly on the pavement.
I trust you have a spam filter in place so that this will not be published directly.A recent sifting process of CVs for candidates in relation to the Conservative party and the upcoming police and crime commissioner post in Cambridge may not have followed the democratic process. With limited final places for candidates , councillor Steve Tiereny of Wisbech was fully aware one week before the sifting process that had been selected meaning that 5 places were available to potential candidates from the whole of Cambridgeshire. All this before any other members of the review panel having opportunity to make comment on the CVs that had been submitted
I am from Littleport, East Cambridshire. We experience this every week that vans delivering to the neighbouring restaurant park direct in front of our house sometimes
leaving just a foot space for people to pass-by. Recently I witnessed that a lady with a pram was forced to move on the road in order to pass-by? What are driving schools in this country actually teaching drivers???
This culture of cowboy parking seems to be very unique to this country. I was told by an delivery driver that parking on the pavement is a necessity. Strange views but it might be just me. And a police force who doesn’t care at all. You will rarely see such behaviour on the continent.
earlier this week, as they agitated
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Large swaths of the modern Left
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on precisely because they are
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very good