Various news sources have Norman Baker announcing action against pavement parking. The Sun characterizes this as a 'blitz', but true to the 'localism' agenda all the initiative does is makes it easier for local authorities to enforce against it by making the laegal situation more consistent across the country. Whether they will or not is another question.
The Sun has it wrong it its report, which says "Pavement parking is already banned in London." The reality is pavement parking is allowed in many London streets, and in others, councils such as Merton have a policy of tolerating it, even though it can damage footways and services underneath them. In addition, it makes walking less pleasant, can cause an obstruction, and has the effect of urbanizing the public realm and making streets less attractive for communities. It's a shame that local councils don't take pavement parking more seriously, and evidence from London is that Norman Baker's measures won't get them to take action.
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The Sun article ends with a direct quote [presumably it isn't made-up]:
ReplyDelete'The minister conceded: "I know that sometimes parking on the pavement is the only option."'
Heaven forbid that banning pavement parking might encourage some idle drivers to walk.
Now we wouldn't want to do that, would we?