New telegraph pole installed, would like it moved - please help!

turnitround

diystarter7 said:

turnitround said:

I live opposite a medical/day care center which was only built after I moved into this house. The center has only 4 parking spaces and it causes endless problems. My house is also less than 100 yards from a set of traffic lights.

Consequently all day long cars are parked on the kerb outside my house. It has double yellows part of the way but blue badge holders park on those. My husband is disabled and needs a mobility scooter to leave the house but almost every time he needs to go out I have to go to the center and ask if they can get the owner of car reg whatever to move as there is not enough room to get his scooter out of the gate because the cars are so close to our gate.
 
Just 3 weeks ago a lady on a mobility scooter had to go into the road as there were 3 cars in a row blocking the footpath and a car turned left into our road from the lights and hit her.  Those who think its acceptable to use the kerb as a parking space have no idea how it makes life difficult for others.

Hi

What action have you taken to reduce the incidences of this antisocial and dangerous behaviour?

You may not want to and why should you but have you considered putting signup telling people to keep access clear?

Judging by what you have said and your hubbys disability, I am staggered that your useless council has not taken decisive action.

Where we live, about half a mile from a station, dow the road as you get close to the station, people with drives often used to have cars encroaching on their drives but the council and their CEO are hot on ticketing cars and now its rare for anyone to not block but even slightly encroach someones drive.


Good luck

To be honest I have thought about a sign on the gate but we dont need to get the scooter out on a daily basis so we try to work round going out when the path is clear. Its worse when we come home as as obviously you can leave the house when its clear but have no control on whats there when you get back. It seems petty to put a sign up to try to keep it clear when we dont need 24-7 access and its nt a huge problem if we are not going out.

There are double yellows which start part way along our fence but its blue badge holders that park so they have a right to be on the lines. Its a bus route as well so when a bus turns into the road they have to stop and hold up traffic behind them as they cant get through past the parked cars outside mine as the other side of the road has traffic queuing waiting for the lights to change for them to go. 
Ive lost count of the number of wing mirrors I have picked up out of the road.

One house about 7 or 8 doors further down from us puts cones out which I think is ridiculous, there are no double yellows there and of course she does not have a right to her own space outside her house but it does get frustrating. Luckily we have parking for our car at the back but we cant get the scooter out the back way.

diystarter7

turnitround said:

diystarter7 said:

turnitround said:

I live opposite a medical/day care center which was only built after I moved into this house. The center has only 4 parking spaces and it causes endless problems. My house is also less than 100 yards from a set of traffic lights.

Consequently all day long cars are parked on the kerb outside my house. It has double yellows part of the way but blue badge holders park on those. My husband is disabled and needs a mobility scooter to leave the house but almost every time he needs to go out I have to go to the center and ask if they can get the owner of car reg whatever to move as there is not enough room to get his scooter out of the gate because the cars are so close to our gate.
 
Just 3 weeks ago a lady on a mobility scooter had to go into the road as there were 3 cars in a row blocking the footpath and a car turned left into our road from the lights and hit her.  Those who think its acceptable to use the kerb as a parking space have no idea how it makes life difficult for others.

Hi

What action have you taken to reduce the incidences of this antisocial and dangerous behaviour?

You may not want to and why should you but have you considered putting signup telling people to keep access clear?

Judging by what you have said and your hubbys disability, I am staggered that your useless council has not taken decisive action.

Where we live, about half a mile from a station, dow the road as you get close to the station, people with drives often used to have cars encroaching on their drives but the council and their CEO are hot on ticketing cars and now its rare for anyone to not block but even slightly encroach someones drive.


Good luck

To be honest I have thought about a sign on the gate but we dont need to get the scooter out on a daily basis so we try to work round going out when the path is clear. Its worse when we come home as as obviously you can leave the house when its clear but have no control on whats there when you get back. It seems petty to put a sign up to try to keep it clear when we dont need 24-7 access and its nt a huge problem if we are not going out.

There are double yellows which start part way along our fence but its blue badge holders that park so they have a right to be on the lines. Its a bus route as well so when a bus turns into the road they have to stop and hold up traffic behind them as they cant get through past the parked cars outside mine as the other side of the road has traffic queuing waiting for the lights to change for them to go. 
Ive lost count of the number of wing mirrors I have picked up out of the road.

One house about 7 or 8 doors further down from us puts cones out which I think is ridiculous, there are no double yellows there and of course she does not have a right to her own space outside her house but it does get frustrating. Luckily we have parking for our car at the back but we cant get the scooter out the back way.

Hi
Thnaks, As you are aware and as I said, a sign wont register with everyone but as you have not contacted the council and seeked their advice I suggest you do. At times it is only one or two people that are the problem and once ticketed for parking wrongly, they won't do it there again

Either way, good luck

:0

Section62

turnitround said:

There are double yellows which start part way along our fence but its blue badge holders that park so they have a right to be on the lines. Its a bus route as well so when a bus turns into the road they have to stop and hold up traffic behind them as they cant get through past the parked cars outside mine as the other side of the road has traffic queuing waiting for the lights to change for them to go. 

In your situation I'd probably start by trying to track down a route manager at the bus depot the buses come from.  If their buses are getting held up like this then the route manager is a good person to have on your side when dealing with the council.  They will likely have contacts within the council, typically via a public transport liaison panel, where issues such as congestion and obstructive parking will be discussed.  The local traffic management authority have a statutory duty to manage traffic on their network, which includes identifying (and seeking to resolve) congestion issues.

What you need to do is to get the council to add a 'no loading' restriction to the double yellows, as in most cases (although there are exceptions) a 'no loading' restriction prevents blue badge holders parking on yellow lines.

If the double yellows have failed to deter parking which holds up bus services, the LTMA have a duty to review the restrictions and consider a 'no loading' (or no stopping) as well.  The bus company should be on your side with this.

But bear in mind any additional restriction will also apply to you.

diystarter7 said:

Thnaks, As you are aware and as I said, a sign wont register with everyone but as you have not contacted the council and seeked their advice I suggest you do. At times it is only one or two people that are the problem and once ticketed for parking wrongly, they won't do it there again

If the parking is by people visiting the medical/day care centre then a few tickets are unlikely to make much difference - the 'churn' of visitors means there will always be someone new who is unaware of the risk of being ticketed.  If the problem was with staff parking then your suggestion might work.

However, it isn't clear why you think that the council could 'ticket' people with a blue badge parked on a road with double yellows (but without loading restrictions).  Unless this is one of the locations where footway parking is expressly prohibited, or there is a loading restriction in force, then it wouldn't normally be possible for a council enforcement officer to issue a penalty.

turnitround

Section62 said:

turnitround said:

There are double yellows which start part way along our fence but its blue badge holders that park so they have a right to be on the lines. Its a bus route as well so when a bus turns into the road they have to stop and hold up traffic behind them as they cant get through past the parked cars outside mine as the other side of the road has traffic queuing waiting for the lights to change for them to go. 

In your situation I'd probably start by trying to track down a route manager at the bus depot the buses come from.  If their buses are getting held up like this then the route manager is a good person to have on your side when dealing with the council.  They will likely have contacts within the council, typically via a public transport liaison panel, where issues such as congestion and obstructive parking will be discussed.  The local traffic management authority have a statutory duty to manage traffic on their network, which includes identifying (and seeking to resolve) congestion issues.

What you need to do is to get the council to add a 'no loading' restriction to the double yellows, as in most cases (although there are exceptions) a 'no loading' restriction prevents blue badge holders parking on yellow lines.

If the double yellows have failed to deter parking which holds up bus services, the LTMA have a duty to review the restrictions and consider a 'no loading' (or no stopping) as well.  The bus company should be on your side with this.

But bear in mind any additional restriction will also apply to you.

diystarter7 said:

Thnaks, As you are aware and as I said, a sign wont register with everyone but as you have not contacted the council and seeked their advice I suggest you do. At times it is only one or two people that are the problem and once ticketed for parking wrongly, they won't do it there again

If the parking is by people visiting the medical/day care centre then a few tickets are unlikely to make much difference - the 'churn' of visitors means there will always be someone new who is unaware of the risk of being ticketed.  If the problem was with staff parking then your suggestion might work.

However, it isn't clear why you think that the council could 'ticket' people with a blue badge parked on a road with double yellows (but without loading restrictions).  Unless this is one of the locations where footway parking is expressly prohibited, or there is a loading restriction in force, then it wouldn't normally be possible for a council enforcement officer to issue a penalty.

Thanks for the suggestions. Its not the staff causing the problem as they mostly park down the street  just off ours (that's a whole other story) as I think they try to leave the car park spaces for patients. 

Im not out to get people ticketed, I know its difficult for them to find spaces and as I said I have my own car parking at the back of the house. I just get irritated when we cant get out of the front gate. The bus company must be aware of the issue, the buses turn left into our road and then 50 yards past our house they have to go left again and have the same problem there as cars are double parked. Thats were staff are parking. Ive seen drivers have to get out of their cabs and have to go into the center to ask someone to move.

The problem is that the center just used to be for elderly day care, now due to the doctors being under pressure they have added anti natal, chiropody and several more clinics to the place hence the number of visitors. 

goonergaz70

Section62 said:

35har1old said:

Section62 said:

35har1old said:

goonergaz70 said:

 

Is that a underground telephone supply box adjacent to base of pole ?
If it is that's why the pole is there.

The pole doesn't have to be immediately adjacent to the chamber. (hence the work instruction giving a 2m allowance in this case)

Moving it 2m would put it very close to the driveway of the house with the blue bin which has not be altered like the adjacent house making way for a second car entry it would stop that household doing the same.
Also the excavation then would be in a tarmac footpath opposed to a grass verge. Pole hole and a track 1.5m in tarmac plus grass verge to box. Which then would involve a guarantee period.
Moving it in the other direction is likely not possible due to underground cables or ducting going to box
Pole should have been erected at back of footpath

Locating the pole at the rear of the footway would have reduced the width of the footway, the 'verge' is a better place for it so long as the horizontal clearance from the carriageway is sufficient.

It is easy to second guess why the contractor has done what they have done (or not done), but since none of us are endowed with x-ray vision we can't see what other plant and equipment is present that the contractor had to avoid.

The point I made was that the pole doesn't necessarily have to be immediately adjacent to the chamber, as your previous post implied.  The contractor simply needed to find a suitable location near to the 'X' on the plan.

Yeah - the guys said if someone had said something at the time they would have put it the other side of the access - so essentially giving a car space in front of the house back (which was the point, now we have 1 space in this area instead of 2 - moving the pole along a bit would have left 2 spaces)

goonergaz70

turnitround said:

I live opposite a medical/day care center which was only built after I moved into this house. The center has only 4 parking spaces and it causes endless problems. My house is also less than 100 yards from a set of traffic lights.

Consequently all day long cars are parked on the kerb outside my house. It has double yellows part of the way but blue badge holders park on those. My husband is disabled and needs a mobility scooter to leave the house but almost every time he needs to go out I have to go to the center and ask if they can get the owner of car reg whatever to move as there is not enough room to get his scooter out of the gate because the cars are so close to our gate.
 
Just 3 weeks ago a lady on a mobility scooter had to go into the road as there were 3 cars in a row blocking the footpath and a car turned left into our road from the lights and hit her.  Those who think its acceptable to use the kerb as a parking space have no idea how it makes life difficult for others.

I totally agree - so we're 100% clear, our parking does not affect the actual pathway.

35har1old said:

Section62 said:

diystarter7 said:

35har1old said:

Pole should have been erected at back of footpath

Hi

Best idea on the long thread.
Out of the way and less likley people having to adjust car position to open door etc but I'm sure someone will find a problem with a great and easy  solution like this.

IMO, placing a T/pole up against a wall should be the default mode unless it was not feasible due to massive extra costs 

Thnak you

So you actually think it would be a good idea to partially obstruct a relatively narrow footway with a big wooden post and have to excavate through hard surfacing, rather than placing it in the soft verge which people don't need to walk on, and shouldn't be parking on?

Even 35har1old noted the disadvantage of a situation in which the "excavation then would be in a tarmac footpath opposed to a grass verge", albeit they went on to contradict themselves by proposing a solution which requires just that.

i was only trying to explain why it would not have been placed in the footpath due to gaining permits for excavation and then having to guarantee reinstatement for at least a year and if it fails inspection the year begins again. And  the correct position off most above ground utility apparatus is to the rear of footpath. It should have been sited on the boundary between the two houses as per  See Issue 2 Section 5.0 from the web address below

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/692124/Revised_Cabi

'The big wooden pole' would be roughly 300mm in diameter is small in comparison to a car parked fully on the grass verge / footpath in photo supplied by the person who first posted the issue.

Hope there's not to many home delivers from supermarkets in this area. It could be quite expensive for the supermarket due to losing  wing mirrors.  

Update the link above must be incomplete as it does not function

 

The pathway is quite wide (at least double buggy width) on both sides of the road, though the other side (my side) has street lighting on the path. Just a few houses from us the council have actually tarmacked the grass verges and further down the have 'grasscreted' everywhere, for some reason we seem (our part of the road) to have been left out when this happened.

deano2099

Section62 said:

The same argument can be made about homes.

Try selling the idea to the voting public that they should forget about living in their own home, and instead share one with several other families/people.

I think you have this backwards because that's exactly what people do - not many people live alone. Even fewer that actually own the property they are living with. 
And indeed, the entire parking infrastructure in the UK is based on people sharing cars to the exact same extent they share homes: one car per household. Where the problems arise is where people who are happy living together still want/need their own cars. We're now at 1.24 cars per household and so starting to see this problem.

It'll become more and more of a problem as more people actually do exactly what you suggest, and buy homes with shared ownership with friends rather than just as a family unit, and landlords cram more and more people into HMOs - all individuals with different lives who all want their own transportation.

deano2099

Section62 said:

However, it isn't clear why you think that the council could 'ticket' people with a blue badge parked on a road with double yellows (but without loading restrictions).  Unless this is one of the locations where footway parking is expressly prohibited, or there is a loading restriction in force, then it wouldn't normally be possible for a council enforcement officer to issue a penalty.

Depends how much space is left on the footpath - it's still illegal to park in a way that obstructs the footpath regardless of blue badge or not.

Section62

deano2099 said:

Section62 said:

The same argument can be made about homes.

Try selling the idea to the voting public that they should forget about living in their own home, and instead share one with several other families/people.

I think you have this backwards because that's exactly what people do - not many people live alone. Even fewer that actually own the property they are living with.

I don't think you've understood my post then.

Family units and people living alone is very common.  Multiple family units living on one home is relatively uncommon. Individuals house-share as students and young people, and for economic reasons there is growth in house-sharing towards and increasing age.  But fundamentally people living in their 'own home' rather than sharing with others is the norm, and is still generally seen as a desirable objective in life.

In the past, say before 1950, it was common for multiple families to share one dwelling. Many 1930's semis were built with two large bedrooms precisely for that reason - e.g. they would often initially house two couples before the owning couple had children.

Part of the housing 'crisis' we currently have is because people want to live in their own home rather than house-share.

By "own home" I didn't mean exclusively living "alone".

deano2099 said:

And indeed, the entire parking infrastructure in the UK is based on people sharing cars to the exact same extent they share homes: one car per household.

Is it?  How did that happen then?

Since the 1970's (with a temporary blip in the early 00's) national planning policy has been to apply minimum parking standards for new and converted residential development.  Typically these are bedroom-based - i.e. 1 space for a 1-bed, 2 spaces for a 2 to 3-bed, 3 spaces for a 4 bed.  So in relation to anything built post-1975 (or thereabouts) it is incorrect to claim "the entire parking infrastructure in the UK...[is based on]...one car per household".

Prior to about 1940 car ownership was very low, and properties either had no off-street parking, or had some area which could be parked on, but certainly not on a planned basis of "one car per household".

In some terraced streets there may be approximately enough space for one car per household, but generally that is by happy coincidence, not least because cars weren't around at the time the houses were built. The typical Victorian terrace has something less than one space per house though.

deano2099 said:

Where the problems arise is where people who are happy living together still want/need their own cars. We're now at 1.24 cars per household and so starting to see this problem.

It'll become more and more of a problem as more people actually do exactly what you suggest, and buy homes with shared ownership with friends rather than just as a family unit, and landlords cram more and more people into HMOs - all individuals with different lives who all want their own transportation.

Whether or not a problem arises depends on the provision of parking in the locality.  Both demand for parking, and the provision of parking space, is not uniformly distributed as your post appears to suggest (i.e. the one car per household thing).

In some streets/locations parking is simply not an option.  No on or off-street provision is made.

In other streets the parking availablity is somewhere below 1 space per property.

Elsewhere the supply of parking (or capacity to create additional parking) is such that no shortage is ever likely to occur.

This lack of uniformity is in fact the fundamental problem with residential parking.  There is parking, but not always where people want/need it.

Planning authorities have already recognised the growing problem of HMOs, and the parking stress these can cause is one of the reasons why many authorities have removed PD HMO rights and require a planning application to be submitted (which among other things allows the parking situation to be assessed).

Ultimately parking is a relatively self-limiting thing.  If parking isn't available people are less likely to buy/own a car. People who need a car are less likely to buy/rent a property with no parking. And if the parking situation isn't managed by self-limitation, then local traffic authorities have extensive powers to regulate on-street (and in come cases off-street) parking to achieve a more equitable result.

Section62

deano2099 said:

Section62 said:

However, it isn't clear why you think that the council could 'ticket' people with a blue badge parked on a road with double yellows (but without loading restrictions).  Unless this is one of the locations where footway parking is expressly prohibited, or there is a loading restriction in force, then it wouldn't normally be possible for a council enforcement officer to issue a penalty.

Depends how much space is left on the footpath - it's still illegal to park in a way that obstructs the footpath regardless of blue badge or not.

Unfortunately you are incorrect on both points.  How much space is left on the footway is irrelevant to whether or not a council enforcement officer can issue a penalty notice. (aka 'ticket').

If the area is one where footway parking is expressly prohibited via the decriminalised regime (e.g. in London) then a penalty can be issued by the council if the vehicle is parked on the kerb/verge/footway to any degree, unless there is a bay marking due to an exemption appling to that parking place.

In areas where there is no express prohibition on footway parking it is not illegal to park on the footway.

It is illegal to park on the highway in a manner which causes an obstruction.  Whether or not an actionable obstruction is occurring will vary on a case by case basis.

Obstruction of the highway remains a criminal offence and has not been decriminalised.  Which means a council enforcement officer cannot issue a penalty (aka "ticket").  This would be a police enforcement matter - at most the council officer could report the vehicle to the police for them to enforce.

There are some specific situations - such as parking in front of a dropped kerb - which are obstruction and enforced by council officers, but these are specific contraventions (e.g. S86 Traffic Management Act 2004). They aren't highway obstruction of the kind which would apply if a vehicle is parked on a footway.