Resident's Parking

ARH_2

The road I live on consists of terraced houses, with no off street parking, so parking is naturally an issue. The proximity to a train station makes the issue worse, although less so during lockdown. 

A large cul-de-sac with separate name has c.50 houses on it, and I live on the corner of said cul-de-sac and the main road. 

On this cul-de-sac there are a few small (perhaps 3 inches by 9 inches) signs stating  "[road name] residents only parking".

Other parts of the local authority have Controlled Parking Zones, but this is not in one. It seems CPZs are typically quite large areas, and typically time restricted.

It would seem I'm unable to park 20 metres around the corner from my house, whilst someone else is parked outside my house, as I'm a resident of the main road, not the cul-de-sac. This would seem fair if it's a private road, or maintained by those residents, but this would seem not to be the case from published information. 

Could someone have just stuck signs down their street to deter the commuters? How can I go about finding out the status of the road? Thanks.

Car_54

ARH_2 said:

Could someone have just stuck signs down their street to deter the commuters?

Almost certainly. I'd expect to see "Resident permit holders" rather than "residents". And no mention of the street name.

ARH_2

Car_54 said:

ARH_2 said:

Could someone have just stuck signs down their street to deter the commuters?

Almost certainly. I'd expect to see "Resident permit holders" rather than "residents". And no mention of the street name.

Thanks. So is there any way to be more sure the signs are iligitimate? 

Assuming they are, I could of course just start parking there, but that still seems rather unfair on everyone else. And the commuters will continue to park outside my house, as they think they can't park on the cul-de-sac. 

Perhaps I should just get my angle grinder out and take them down, but would need to be very sure of the status of the road for that

PS. The May 2015 Google Street view pictures show the signs to not be there. The houses and cul-de-sac are at least 70 years old. 

cymruchris

Can you photograph one of the signs - and blank out the actual road name - then post it here?

ARH_2

cymruchris said:

Can you photograph one of the signs - and blank out the actual road name - then post it here?

Here you go. Thanks.

Grumpy_chap

How are the residents cars identified?  Is there a permit scheme?

AdrianC

ARH_2 said:

cymruchris said:

Can you photograph one of the signs - and blank out the actual road name - then post it here?

Here you go. Thanks.

It's very official-looking, but it carries roughly zero actual enforceable legal weight on its own.

My money's on a bunch of NIMBYs buying the sign and putting it up in the hope it'll do exactly what it is doing.

So, yes, go ahead and park there. See what happens... One thing's for sure, you won't get a legally enforceable penalty.

ARH_2

Grumpy_chap said:

How are the residents cars identified?  Is there a permit scheme?

Another reason it raised my suspicion: there are no visible permits on cars parked there. Other parts of the borough use Epermits, but trying to sign up for one here on the council website confims it's not in a CPZ.

ARH_2

AdrianC said:

ARH_2 said:

cymruchris said:

Can you photograph one of the signs - and blank out the actual road name - then post it here?

Here you go. Thanks.

It's very official-looking, but it carries roughly zero actual enforceable legal weight on its own.

My money's on a bunch of NIMBYs buying the sign and putting it up in the hope it'll do exactly what it is doing.

So, yes, go ahead and park there. See what happens... One thing's for sure, you won't get a legally enforceable penalty.

It seems wrong to me that people can just put up official-looking signs. Can they? I see it as swindling road-tax-paying people out of their right to park, which doesn't seem fair. It also exacerbates the parking problem on adjoining roads, so whilst me parking there is a help, it doesn't seem like the just solution. 

NottinghamKnight

Sign seems to have been stuck on a telegraph pole which also makes you assume it isn't official. It is no doubt annoying if commuters park there so understandable why people might want to do something, residents only parking would be an option but would cost money for a permitting system. They probably need planning for the sign so you could report it to the council planners to see if they will take it down.

AdrianC

ARH_2 said:

It seems wrong to me that people can just put up official-looking signs. Can they?

They don't have any right to put anything up on local authority property - such as a lamp post.
If it's private property, it's less clear-cut.

If that's the sum total of the signage, it's meaningless anyway, other than as a warning they don't want you to do that there.
How much weight you want to place on that warning is up to you.
How they will treat breaches of the warning is another question.

I see it as swindling road-tax-paying people out of their right to park, which doesn't seem fair. It also exacerbates the parking problem on adjoining roads, so whilst me parking there is a help, it doesn't seem like the just solution. 

It's not really any different to one of the residents coming out of their house as you park and saying "Please don't park in our road, you don't live here".

Like I said, there's not a sausage they can actually do about it.

Anything on an adopted road would be run by the LA, and would be a permit-based scheme accompanied by TROs.
Anything on private land would be commercially-run, and would require signage for the invoices to be enforceable.

But, of course, there may be mysterious damage to your paint or tyres...