Access to garage cut, what can I do?

GlasweJen

I live in West Lothian and have blackouts, recently awarded indefinate DLA MC & LM. Although I can walk more than 100m normally I can't when I've had a blackout.

We moved house lately and we're at the end of a dead end street. Parking is tight but we have a garage. Our neighbours other half (doesn't live there apparently but his car says otherwise) keeps parking in front of our garage blocking the car in. The car belongs to my flatmate as I'm not allowed to drive. We've asked nicely for him not to park there explaining that i need to get to A&E quickly sometimes but he still does it. If he's there an ambulance can't get up the street. I'm really scared that one day i'll have a bad attack and we wont be able to get me to hospital even though the nearest A&E is only 15 mins up the road. What can I do to restore access to our garage? We've tried the local councillor but he's hopeless! We've been told that in order to paint the road for a disabled person i'd need high mobility but i can walk!

ETA even when we park on street he parks right up our a**e so we can't get out anyway.
HELP

Horace

It is now an offence to park cars blocking driveways - it was on the news yesterday. Instead of dealing with your local councillor (remember not to vote for him or her next time round) go to your MP - I bet if you get your MP involved a white line will be painted in the road highlighting the fact that there is a driveway there and it shouldnt be blocked.

Try contacting the local newspaper too - they love little stories like this.

Good luck.

Biggles

Every time he parks across the drive, knock on the door and say you're just popping out to the shops and need him to move. And tell him you'll be back quite soon.

He'll get fed up first.

hilstep2000

I rang our Council, and they sent me a letter telling me how to paint a white line outside our garage. (There are regulations how long etc)
Then I got a sign from Active mobility, here's the link:
http://www.activemobility.co.uk/shop/outside-acrylic-no-parking-sign-p-1539.html
When someone parked across our garage, and my partner needed to get the car out (he's a doctor) we phoned the Police. They came along, towed it away, and gave him an on the spot £60 fine!
Try that, he'll soon get the message!

allydowd

Buy a wheelclamp...

GlasweJen

As I'm in Scotland I understand that it's illegal to clamp cars?

Council have ruled out painting lines on the street at all as I am not on highest mobility but they acknowledge that the emergency services have problems in streets like this in my area.

I've written again to the council about the problem and if that doesn't work i'll involve the MP as this is a bloody nightmare.

I'm going to get one of those signs for the garage door in the mean time so that at least he can't claim he didn't know that we needed access.

PolishBigSpender

Yup, illegal under Scots Law to clamp a car. Ruled extortion and theft, I believe.

Pssst

AFAIK it is an offence to prevent the authorised use of a vehicle on a public highway. therefore if your driveway is blocked,and you have a legitimate dropped kerb,your use is being prevented. It would depend on the individual situation. Perhaps you should block HIM in too?

GlasweJen

Our kerb isn't dropped as there isn't a pavement, our garage sits on the road if that makes sense? It's like a row of garages in front of the houses. To make matters worse the neighbour also has a garage at the other side of the street but it's full of crap so they can't fit their car in! I got rather annoyed as we did manage to block him in last night (we had a guest who parked behind him) and he threatened all sorts when he came to the door.

GlasweJen

Sorry to ask again but i'm unsure of this.

All the signs I can find have a wheelchair on them, clearly I'm not a wheelchair user so I don't want the neighbour to report us for posting a sign that implies that we have a wheelchair user in the house. Does anyone know where I can get a sign that says disabled access needed 24 hours without showing a wheelchair user? Or is it ok for a non-walking impaired person to post a picture of a wheelchair user just to show that it's for a disabled person?

Nilrem

The wheelchair is the internationally recognised sign for disabled/mobility problems so I doubt there is any real worry about complaints because you use it.