Consultation asking whether a change of existing pavement parking legislation should occur. Three options are being proposed to tackle pavement parking at a local authority or national level:
- Improving the Traffic Regulation Order process, under which local authorities can already prohibit pavement parking.
- A legislative change to allow local authorities with civil parking enforcement powers to enforce against ‘unnecessary obstruction of the pavement’.
- A legislative change to introduce a London-style pavement parking prohibition throughout England.
This consultation from the Department for Transport ran from 7 September until 9 November 2020.
CBC response - managing pavement parking
We favour option 2, and if possible, would like to see carriageway obstructive parking also added. Of further note:
- There are some issues around how much footway is available before obstruction is declared; we take a reasonable view of 4’ clear, but this should not be a determining factor.
- Damage to services under the footway, additional signage clutter, and unintended consequences of removing parking, that is not presently damaging, away to other locations might pose issues.
- There are some difficulties in defining an obstruction. Some examples have been proposed.
- Principally, we believe that “pavements are for people” (not parking) – and all authorities should adopt this national communication strategy.
- We want it to be recognised that there may need to be differences in approach in rural, urban and different residential areas.