Parking spaces not wide enough to open car doors

Section62

KC14 said:

There is on street parking for visitors. The parking in question is in a private courtyard that is accessed through an archway under a coach house. I looked on the local council's planning portal last night and couldn't see anything about the parking. 

The theory behind minimum parking standards and planning conditions is that a new development should have enough on-site parking provision so residents/visitors don't need to park on street (which could impact on other existing residents of the street or cause obstruction/danger).

Strictly speaking there doesn't need to be a specific condition about parking - if the consent is given in terms that the development has to be carried out as per the approved plan(s) and the plans show that parking arrangement then that could be enough to have a basis for enforcement action to be taken.  Conditions are more useful where is it important to control the use of part of the development which could also be used for something else - for example a condition could be used to say a garage had to be retained for parking a motor vehicle to stop it being converted into living space, which (in the absence of a condition) can often be done as permitted development.  An 'external' parking space, especially one as park of a communal block, has limited alternative uses.

HampshireH

Seems a poor design putting a gate into the fence to access No.1 else they could reverse in and right up to the fence (passengers getting in and out when the car is moved) I used to have a space where I had to do similar.

What are the actual measurements of the spaces? They shouldn't be smaller than 2.4m wide (sorry if I missed you have clarifed this)

p00hsticks

KC14 said:

My neighbour parks one car at the front of their house and one in the middle of their 2 parking spaces at the back so you can get in and out easily. 

You say there are two parking spaces that come with the property you are interested in. are they adjacent ?  Do you actually have two cars ? If not, can you not just do the same as the neighbour and park across both spaces ?

theoretica

Are the parking spaces freehold too?  Are they "two parking spaces" or better thought of as X x Y metres of land?

Norman_Castle

Who will police the parking if you ignore the marked bays and treat it as four spaces?

housebuyer143

p00hsticks said:

KC14 said:

Hi,

My sisters neighbour has approached me about buying her property... I am interested but have a concern over the parking. They have 2 allocated parking spaces but if you park in the 2 spaces you can't open the car doors. There are 5 spaces in a row and the 5th space is a visitor space that isn't really usuable for the same reason. I was wondering if anyone has approached the Management company about having a visitor space removed to make the other spaces fit for purpose?

TIA

Really there only really needs to be enough space to open one door - that of the driver. Passengers can get out before the driver drives into the space.   

Unless your passenger is a young child or a baby? 
I once returned to my car being unable to open the back door enough to get my baby in car seat into the car. My choice ultimately was to have to ask someone in the car park to watch my baby while I reversed the car, hardly ideal! 

diystarter7

[Deleted User] said:

Norman_Castle said:

KC14 said:

There is on street parking for visitors. The parking in question is in a private courtyard that is accessed through an archway under a coach house. I looked on the local council's planning portal last night and couldn't see anything about the parking.

Often when properties or built or developed adequate on site parking is a planning requirement. The original planning permission will give the information needed. Permissions often state X amount of parking which cannot be changed or used for any other purpose.

How have people parked there for the last 13 years?

It's shear incompetence, the same as mandating garages that are too small for most cars.

Hi

In defence of the builders, it is not "shear inco..." but sheer greed.  The smaller the so-called garage, the more room in the house
and less to build a house as if a wider longer garage the house itself may have to be bigger. Parking spaces, land costs loads of money so the smaller the space the cheaper it is

Thnaks

Norman_Castle

[Deleted User] said:

Norman_Castle said:

KC14 said:

There is on street parking for visitors. The parking in question is in a private courtyard that is accessed through an archway under a coach house. I looked on the local council's planning portal last night and couldn't see anything about the parking.

Often when properties or built or developed adequate on site parking is a planning requirement. The original planning permission will give the information needed. Permissions often state X amount of parking which cannot be changed or used for any other purpose.

How have people parked there for the last 13 years?

It's shear incompetence, the same as mandating garages that are too small for most cars.

Its economics. You can have a massive garage and acres of parking if you can afford it. House builders have the option to allow more space for cars but they don't as it reduces the number of homes they can build on an area of land.

diystarter7

Norman_Castle said:

[Deleted User] said:

Norman_Castle said:

KC14 said:

There is on street parking for visitors. The parking in question is in a private courtyard that is accessed through an archway under a coach house. I looked on the local council's planning portal last night and couldn't see anything about the parking.

Often when properties or built or developed adequate on site parking is a planning requirement. The original planning permission will give the information needed. Permissions often state X amount of parking which cannot be changed or used for any other purpose.

How have people parked there for the last 13 years?

It's shear incompetence, the same as mandating garages that are too small for most cars.

Its economics. You can have a massive garage and acres of parking if you can afford it. House builders have the option to allow more space for cars but they don't as it reduces the number of homes they can build on an area of land.

Hi

Thanks for confirming what I posted, I just want to add that its not just the size of the parking spaces, and garages. I recall visitinng a new build block of apartments for work purposes and was looking at HA property that were to house people with limited mobility and FT wheelchair applicants.  The ceilings were so much lower than most places/apartments i'd visited built  10 years or more before those and often open plan kitchen and lounge saving more money on the build. There are regulations about size etc, but I bet they work right on the edge.

Norman_Castle

zagubov said:

We're getting like Hong Kong where large cars signal status but parking spaces are too small for fully-loaded cars to disembark when parked.

My car's slim and compact but even so I can only just fit in new parking spaces. My employer has a huge empty bicycle park no-one uses as we're at the top of a steep hill.

We need to send our town planners to the Netherlands where they understand things that work.

My first car was an original mini estate. I saw one a few years ago in a car park and it looked like a toy among modern cars. Your slim and compact car is only slim and compact compared to other modern cars.