I live in a small cul-de-sac, although we live in a large village, my area is fairly quiet. we have a small car park in front of our houses, where the residents park. Occasionally, very occasionally, someone, usually a commuter, parks their car in the car park and walks the four minutes from our car park to the train station which provides direct routes into London and Peterborough and easy access to the Cambridge line, from these stations you can get just about anywhere in the country, so our little station gets busy, the connecting bus routes for surrounding villages is quite poor. so many people drive and park around the roads as near to the train station as they can, without the need to buy a ticket for the official train station car park, which frankly is a ridiculous price. A few years ago a field bedside the station was turned into a large pay and display carpark, which is well used especially during the week and is a reasonable price (well, I think its reasonable anyway....£3 a day??)
Anyways, it seems that some of the roads, especially the only road in and out of the village was starting to get grid locked in the morning for a hour, as the world started to get off to work, bloody great lorries are trying to get in and out of the village at the same time as the school run (which is not as calm as I am sounding), not to mention all the school coaches delivering all our little darlings to the upper school a couple of villages away, then of course you get the drivers (male and female I might add) who have absolutely no idea of what is going on outside of their lump of metal and frankly drive like a twat!
And so, the council decide that they will put out a survey, it was quite straight forward, pit a tick or cross in the box, normal questions....Do you think parking in your road is a problem?....X.
Do you think parking permits would help?....X.
Bla Bla Bla......I returned the form and thought no more about it, until the parking signs started to go up last week.
Then a letter from central Bedfordshire council arrives...
From the 21st November if I want to park my car in the car park in front of my house I will need to purchase a permit.
This is where it starts getting messy, despite the fact that, according to a reliable source, only a very small percentage of residents wanted parking permits put into place, they are here and the rules are so patchy.
The restrictions are between 10am and 4pm, you cannot park unless you have a permit, parking for one hour is allowed if your car is registered to your address.
So, I do not own a car, as being blind, means sadly I am unable to drive one!
But my partner does own a car, but because he doesn't live with me, the car isn't registered to my address and therefore I am unable to get a permit for him to park at my house. I am unable to put my 'blue badge' in his car as you are not allowed to use the badge in a residential street, apparently!
I have to buy a visitors pass, at the grand price of £30 for a book of 25 passes, which means I am going to be paying £30 every other week, as people visit me all the time.
My neighbour has four cars parked outside, but because they work full time, and their cars aren't in the car park during the permit times they don't have to buy a permit, which incidentally would mean they pay £90 a year for permits, its £10 a year for one car and goes up to £90 for four.
But the old lady who lives in one of the bungalows across the carpark is retired and has a car, she has to pay £10 for her car and £30 for a visitors pass for her son who visits regularly.
What a complete cock up, I am so cross that some twat thought this is ok, they don't give a shit about the people this is effecting, they just gonna sit back and take the money.
I have emailed the council, but the guy is away on leave! Bet the silly sod is off with stress as half of the village must be on his back, I have left a message saying that the council can come along and drop the curb in front of my front lawn and my visitors can park on my garden, betcha he don't reply!
AND, I don't know, maybe its just me, but if, like next door, their four cars leave the car park from about 6am they are all gone by 8am, they don't return home until about 6pm. then why cant commuters park in the carparks within that time?
The road that gets parked on the most is a street where all the houses have drives, most of, if not all, of those residents have driven off to work within those times so whey not let a commuter park on your drive while you are at work, it clears the road and makes it look like there is someone at your house which might put off a burglar or two.
We are all people and we are all trying to get somewhere, so why do we have to fight each other, there has to be a easier way, I know its just a parking permit, I just feel that people would rather hate on each other than help each other these days, and also how can things like parking be taken out of our hands so freely and easily, we are not the middle of London, we are a fairly quite village...OHHHHH I am having a right moan this morning...I will leave you now,
Happy Halloween xx
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