National Pavement Parking Ban?

Government Consultation – Have Your Say

Mill Road Bridges welcomes this consultation, which follows years of campaigning, nationally and locally. Parliamentarians of all parties, on the Transport Committee, including Cambridge’s MP, Daniel Zeichner, have been looking at this problem for some time. This could herald major improvements to shopping along Mill Road.

Now you can have your say in HM Government’s consultation on dealing with pavement parking, run by the Department for Transport (DfT).

We are not the only group in Cambridge to welcome this consultation. Cambridge Cycling Campaign (CamCycle) posted…

We very much welcome the government’s consultation on dealing with pavement parking. This is the culmination of many years of campaigning by national transport groups and disability groups, as well as local campaigning by us and others.

Parking of cars on pavements is a scourge which can be seen all around the city. It makes it difficult for people walking, using buggies, using wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and people with visual impairments. It damages pavements, and in general treats other road users with a lack of courtesy. It causes injuries and deaths of people walking, particularly children, as a result of drivers trying to park their cars on the pavement.

CamCycle:  Pavement parking needs to stop – and government is finally consulting on it

Many national and regional newspapers carried this Press Association report, pointing out…

Disabled people and parents are particularly affected by parked cars blocking their way…

Recent research from charity Guide Dogs indicated that 32% of people with visual impairments and 48% of wheelchair users are less keen to go out on their own because of antisocial pavement parking.

PA Media in The Guardian (Click to read the full article, on the Guardian website.)

New research by Guide Dogs shows the wide variety of people affected by pavement parking, and the everyday impact it has on their lives. Nine in ten disabled people, including those with sight loss, mobility scooter users, and parents or carers with children said they had been affected by pavement parking. 

Guide Dogs (Read their full blogpost here.)

Read/download Guide Dogs’ full report Blocked in: the impact of pavement parking – February 2020 (PDF) here.

How did it get like this?

Many towns and cities were not designed to accommodate today’s high traffic levels; and at some locations, especially in residential areas with narrow roads and no driveways, the pavement is the only place to park without obstructing the carriageway. However, irrespective of whether pavement parking is deemed necessary, there are inherent dangers for all pedestrians; being forced onto the carriageway and into the flow of traffic. This is particularly difficult for people with sight or mobility impairments, and those with prams or buggies. While resulting damage to the pavement and verges is uppermost, a trip hazard, maintenance and personal injury claims are also a cost to local authorities.

Dft: Pavement parking – Options for Change

But Mill Road’s pavements are wide, in places…

Whilst some sections of Mill Road’s pavements look wide, a large part of what you think is the pavement may be the shops’ forecourt, which they can use for outdoor stalls, seating or displays.

When cars, vans and lorries pull onto the pavement, it leaves little room for people to walk past. It’s even harder if you’re pushing a child’s buggy, or using a wheelchair. And should you have to pull your toddler out of the way of somebody’s car?

But isn’t pavement parking already illegal?

Since 1974, parking on pavements, with certain exceptions, has been prohibited in Greater London… [with] Exemptions at specific locations … indicated by traffic signs… The reverse applies elsewhere in England, where parking on pavements and verges is permitted unless specifically prohibited by a … Traffic Regulation Order (TRO). The DfT is currently … looking at how … to make TROs easier to implement, including for pavement parking.

Dft: Pavement parking – Options for Change

What about ‘obstructing the highway’?

The offence of unnecessary obstruction of the highway, which includes the road as well as the pavement … allow[s] proceedings to be brought by the police … where parking on the pavement, in such a way as to cause obstruction, is … avoidable.

Dft: Pavement parking – Options for Change

Understandably, CamCycle complain that “The police have failed to take action to address pavement parking,” however, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this website…

Cambridgeshire County Council have had powers to deal with this for over nine years.

Councils with civil parking enforcement powers (including Cambridgeshire County Council) were given ‘special authorisation’ in February 2011 by the (then) Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Norman Baker, to prohibit parking on footways and verges, wherever they considered it necessary. This would be through a traffic regulation order (TRO, or ETRO).

Protecting Pedestrian Space on Mill-Road.com (Click to read the full opinion-piece.)

Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 allows most types of parking contraventions to be enforced by local authorities [in our case Cambridgeshire County Council – Ed] as a civil matter, instead of as a criminal matter by the police. enforcement ceases to be the responsibility of the police and becomes the responsibility of the local authority…

Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs)… place Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) on offending vehicles [and] the local authority retains the proceeds from the penalty charges, which are used to finance the enforcement…* Any surpluses must be used for prescribed purposes only.

Dft: Pavement parking – Options for Change

* This means that enforcement would not increase council tax, and may even help fill a few of our notorious potholes.

What are the options?

The DfT outlines three options:

1. rely on improvements to the existing TRO system
2. allow local authorities to enforce ‘Unnecessary obstruction of the pavement’
3. a national pavement parking prohibition

Read what the DfT says about these options, in full, here.

Which option is best?

1. ❌ Cambridgeshire County Council would be under no obligation to do anything. The County have had powers to use TROs to deal with pavement parking for over nine years – powers they have not used, despite there being no cost to council tax payers. Option 1 would, effectively, mean no change to having to dodge cars, taxis, vans and lorries on Mill Road’s pavements.
2. ❌ The same issues apply. Option 2 is simply an extension to the powers which Cambridgeshire County Council have been ignoring for nearly a decade. Would anything change?
3. ✅ The effect of a national pavement parking prohibition would be to reverse the current situation. Cambridgeshire County Council would be obliged to enforce the ban, and would also have to decide where to allow pavement parking. (And, if drivers ignore the ban, the PCN revenue may even help to fill a few potholes.)

We can see why CamCycle write…

We encourage residents to respond positively to the government’s consultation and to support option 3 … In the meanwhile, we continue to ask why the police are not doing more to keep pavements clear for pedestrians.

CamCycle

But what about Romsey’s side streets?

Nothing would change about the parking arrangements along the narrow sections of (eg) Cockburn Street, Thoday Street and Catharine Street, unless residents asked for change.

Local authorities would be expected to decide where pavement parking remained necessary and to introduce the necessary exemptions and to place traffic signs and bay markings to indicate where pavement parking is permitted. The bay could be placed completely on the pavement where there is sufficient width, or part on / part off.

Dft: Pavement parking – Options for Change

What would change, is that it would become unlawful to pull any vehicle onto any of Mill Road’s pavements – and the same across the whole of Cambridge – except for specific exemptions. These would include:

• fire brigade purposes
• police purposes
• ambulance purposes
• delivery, collection, loading or unloading of goods to, or from any premises, in the course of business; where this cannot reasonably be carried out without the vehicle being parked on a pavement

Read the full list of exemptions on the DfT’s Pavement parking: options for change webpage, here.

Now complete your response

You can:
Respond online here
or
download a response form to email to Pavement.parking@dft.gov.uk
or
print out the response form to post to
Keith Hughes
Pavement Parking Consultation
Great Minster House
33 Horseferry Road
LONDON
SW1P 4DR

If this all seems very complicated take a look at the Dft’s Easy read: parking on the pavement questionnaire.

If you would like to see a full list of consultation questions before you respond, click here. Note: this is not the response form.

You are welcome to leave (polite) comments below, to engage with the local community, but these will not be seen by the DfT or become part of the consultation.