Forum Topic

Illegal Pavement parking - should the scheme be extended?

On my travels to West Ealing today besides the usual vehicles with one wheel up on the kerb, due to incompetent/careless parking, there was a Transit type van parked on the pavement outside the Waitrose flats necessitating a detour onto the roadway. Not a PCN or warden in sight. Is this council policy to allow pavement parking? Sooner or later those new paving slabs (they are the smaller square type) are going to be broken and who will be paying for their repair?Three or four years ago I complained to Ealing Council about pavement parking along both sides of Drayton Bridge Road from Greenford Avenue eastwards to Browning Avenue, as many schoolchildren, my daughter included walk along it.What has been done? Nothing! So what councillor/MP/council employee lives along there?

Alan Brainsby ● 6781d13 Comments

I think it's probably a traffic management decision.  It is the accepted way to park along Drayton Bridge Road to the extent that cars or vans parked completely on the road cause a hazard.There is actually plenty of room on the pavement for pedestrians even with the cars - though perhaps it would be sensible to mark the parking area of the pavement as such.

Jane Salisbury ● 6781d

Vehicles parked on Drayton Green Road might well be a hazard but that's not the point. If that statement is true, highly likely, then the parking should be regularized(?, I can't think of the right word), either by permitting controlled pavement parking or double yellow lining one side and allowing parking, on the road, on the other side only.  The main reason that those cars are parked on the pavement is not to keep the highway clear but to avoid damage to them from passing traffic, ie the motives are selfish. Some cars are parked further over than necessary. I notice that the pious drivers who attend Haven Green Baptist Church don't park on the pavement at the end of Castlebar Road but choose to obstruct it.As I mentioned in another thread ALL parking on bus routes should be banned except where permitted.

Alan Brainsby ● 6780d

The reasons that car owners park with wheels on the pavement may well be 'selfish' if it's selfish to not want your wing mirrors knocked off or the wing or your car gauged by a passing bus on a regular basis.The reasons it is allowed is to keep the traffic moving.  There are often big hold ups here anyway - if only one car at a time could move in either direction it would be mayhem.I guess depriving 215 odd families of a place to park their cars out of the blue (there is no option for offstreet parking at all) by making the road yellow lined would go down like a lead balloon - and would also be very fought tooth and nail in the surrounding streets where parking is difficult already.Personally my main problem with parking on Drayton Bridge Rd is 4x4s and vans parking very close to the juction with Dryden Avenue which happens often.  It makes it impossible to see anything coming along Drayton Bridge Rd until you are sticking right out into it. It's impossible to exit Dryden Avenue safely...however cautious you are.  That's a parking misdemeanor I'd love to see punished!

Jane Salisbury ● 6780d

I don't know why I typed 215 families - how strange! I didn't mean too.  But it may be between 100 and 120 ish.

Jane Salisbury ● 6780d

Not all 4x4s are large.  Large cars, vans, lorries and buses are!

Philippa Bond ● 6780d

My point was footways are for pedestrians, not cars to park on and the failure to enforce. The footways on Drayton Bridge Road are heavily use by schoolchildren.  If there is insufficient space to park cars then there seems to be two options:1 Don't have a car because there is nowhere to park it.2 For the council to CPO part of the front gardens along Drayton Bridge Road, widen the road so there is sufficient space for on-road parking whilst retaining the existing pavement width.There is a third option - move house.

Alan Brainsby ● 6780d

All parking on pavements in Ealing should be banned. Fine them £100 each time a car puts it's wheels on pedestrian pathways IMO!

Gerry Tan ● 6780d

Is that £100 per wheel? :)

Alan Brainsby ● 6780d

You're quite right - I meant BIG 4x4s. I actually loved my Space Cruiser (not a 4x4 or all that big but along those lines) as I could see so well driving down narrow streets and coming out of junctions.

Jane Salisbury ● 6780d

I'm not saying anything else...I think the status quo is working fine for the locals...(I walk, run, cycle and walk the dog - down Drayton Manor Rd and my daughter is at Drayton Manor School, so it's not like I don't have first hand experience of it)...I just know that the disruption to our lives would be worse if any of the other options were taken up.

Jane Salisbury ● 6780d

Exactly, the locals.I assume that includes emergency services, E1 buses, and anybody else within a 5 mile radius who uses that strip of road.

Alan Brainsby ● 6780d

"All parking on pavements in Ealing should be banned."It is already!  Pavement parking is banned throughout London (with some exceptions including where signs permit it) under section 15 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 as amended.  Ealing and other boroughs can issue a PCN if one or more wheels are on the pavement, and the penalty is currently £100.

Richard Jennings ● 6780d

Enforcement! Enforcement! Enforcement!

Alan Brainsby ● 6780d